The Copenhagen Alexander

by Zeenat Haroon

Alexander the Great. We all know him. The story of a young ruler who ventured out and conquered the world. Strong, brave and fearless.

Born in 356 BCE to King Philip II of Macedon and his wife Olympias, Alexander was given a first class education, and tutored by among others Aristotle. Brought up with military training and prepared to take over his fathers kingdom, Alexander was proclaimed the king of Macedon in 336 BCE at the age of 20, following his fathers death.

He would go on to conquer much of the known world – Greece, Persia, Egypt and Asia all the way until the Indian subcontinent. He died in 323 BCE at the age of 32 and left an enormous legacy whose impact would be felt for several centuries after his death (some may argue even today).

But what did he look like? How did this conqueror, this king of the world, appear?

Now, a quick interlude. One thing that must be mentioned is the decades long scholarly debate over depictions of Alexander – the central question of these debates being:

Which one is the real Alexander?

Historical figures like Alexander are often portrayed at several different stages of their life, by different people and in different ways. Growing up as royalty and a likely heir to the throne of Macedon, portraits of Alexander were made when he was as young as 15 years old. Margaret Bieber presents a typology consisting of 8 different phases of Alexander portraits both in his lifetime and after. I will here recount the first five:

1. Alexander as a crown prince and young king. These portraits were typically made by the sculptors of Philip II and cover the period from 340-336 BCE.

2. Alexander as the conqueror of Europe and Persia. These portraits were predominantly made by the three court artists: the sculptor Lysippos, the painter Apelles and the gem-engraver Pyrgoteles and cover the period from 336-330 BCE.

3. Alexander as the Great king of Asia – these portraits cover the period from 330 BCE to Alexander’s death in 323 BCE.

4. Alexander as he was portrayed after his death by the diadochi – his successors. These portraits cover the early years after Alexander’s death from 323-300 BCE.

5. Early hellenistic, idealising portrayals of Alexander, especially the Alexandrian perception. These portraits cover the 3rd century BCE. This is the period the Copenhagen Alexander is believed to belong to.

Portraits that belong to the second period are generally agreed to be the most accurate ones. These portraits were made by, or in the image of, the sculptor Lyssipos, who was allegedly the only sculptor that Alexander allowed to depict him in stone or bronze. This is interesting for a few reasons, as it presents new questions:

Why did Alexander only allow Lyssipos to sculpt him? Was he the only one he trusted to represent his true likeness? Or perhaps he presented an idealised version, one that Alexander preferred?

The Hermes Azara is one such portrait of Alexander. It is a Roman copy of a bust made by Lyssipos. Already upon first glance, it becomes clear that this Alexander, made in his own lifetime, is quite different from the Copenhagen Alexander, made posthumously. The face is more elongated, the jaw is more square, the hair a tad less voluminous and more tamed lion’s mane.

Yet, the Hermes Azara is believed to be one of the most accurate depictions of Alexander.

So what happened in the time between the two portraits?

For one thing, Alexander’s death was a monumental event that was the catalyst for a giant shift in the history of the world. With no clear heir, Alexander’s successors, the diadochi, split up the conquered lands between them. Alexander became an almost mythical figure among his successors, a glamorized version of the man they once knew – a perfect conqueror, a great king and someone they wanted to emulate. This idealized version of Alexander started to influence the depictions of him as well, which is a possible explanation for why the two portraits look so different.

It ties back to the ancient Greek concept of καλὸς κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos) – to be beautiful and good. Beauty and virtue were linked, and when both were found in one person, that person lived up to the ideal of both external and internal beauty. Such was the case of Alexander, or at least that was what he and successors wished to project. He himself stood to gain from this as it would have legitimized his authority, and the diadochi would similarly gain from just being associated with a ruler of this caliber. Alexander became more of a symbol than an actual remembered person, and was raised as a standard for his successors to live up to.

This is an evolution we can see in the portrayals of him from different times, and a change that is especially visible when you compare two portraits like the Hermes Azara and the Copenhagen Alexander.

References

Margaret Bieber  – Alexander the great in Greek and Roman art (1964)

Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott – A Greek-English Lexicon (1940)

Frederik Poulsen – Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1951)

About the author

Zeenat Haroon is the host of Let’s Dig Deeper Podcast, which covers topics related to archeology, history, art and culture. She is also a student of Classical Archaeology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.