Clivedurdle

But why did some coins not have a king or a prince on them?

And which group do the Alexander coins fit in? The king group or the not king group?

Gamera

Thank you ynquirer. The point being, despite what spin claimed, once you scrutinize the evidence for historicity of most historical persons from the classic period and before, there is no there there. The problem is everyone simply assumes that Pericles, Socrates and Alexander were real people, so the evidence is never really scrutinized, but merely added to the pile of support. And that's because the historicity of these people really isn't that important.

In contrast, the historicity of Jesus get scrutinized in a maximum way. And that's fine. But my point is, it is usually carried out in the context of "historicity" that simply assumes the reality of figures like Pericles. If you apply the Jesus standard to any of these figures, they melt away. Indeed, it's fair to say there is often more evidence of Jesus' historicity than persons like Socrates.

In short, the skeptics standards basically unravels most of the figures we deem as historical, and as long as they acknowledge that, fine.

ynquirer

Greek coins, as a rule, bore (the head of) either a god or a goddess in the obverse. This famous coin of King Philip II of Macedonia still has the head of Apollo in the obverse here.

Before the second century BC the rule found scarce exceptions, if any. This is another famous coin, minted by King Ptolomy I Soter of Egypt, here. Ptolomy was a Macedonian general that conquered Egypt. Officially the son of one Lagus, Ptolomy actually was the illegitimate son of King Philip II of Macedonia. As the king - pharaoh - of a country where kings were deemed to be living gods, Ptolomy had the right to have his head represented in the coins he minted. Yet, his Macedonian, i.e. Hellenistic origin compelled him to show self restrain in this. He then self represented as Lion-headed Heracles, though modern history believes the head to be Alexander’s. And it was Alexander’s, of course, if one realizes that it was the head of the King-Protector (Basileos Alexandros or BA), as Ptolomy self styled. (He, accordingly, founded Alexandria his capital, that is, “Protectorstown.”)

Gradually, Ptolomy’s minting policy was imitated by other Macedonian generals turned King-Protectors in Seleucia and farther to east. They used to self represent in an indirectly way as Herakles BA. This policy offered the added advantage to ease the formation of a monetary zone where coins similar to one another quite freely circulated. AFAIK it was not until the mid-second century BC, that is, almost two centuries after Alexander allegedly lived, that King Demetrius I Soter of Seleucia dared to represent his own head in the coins he minted - see here.

Yet, the rule to represent kings in the obverse of coins did not spread until the Roman emperors - again, living gods - self represented in theirs. In the late first century BC, and more profusely in the first century CE, most of the Hellenistic kingdoms from Parthia to India joined in the general trend.

Still, the critical spot is whether Ptolomy Soter, revered as a living god by the Egyptian people, would have represented as Hercules in his coins anyone else than himself.

mountainman

"The Life of Apollonius of Tyana" references Alexander thus:
The observation is purported to have happened c. 30 CE,
while the text was written c.216 CE.

As a matter of interest, you will determine that this "Aryan Invasion"
is a theory of history first formulated some centuries ago. There are
at this time a number of competing theories concerning the history
of India, and some of them do not require any "Aryan Invasion",
but rather see an indigenous development of knowledge and skills
along the ancient Sarasvati River system.

premjan

Whether or not an Aryan invasion occurred, many Indians (principally North Indians) are a bit racist or at least shade conscious, being rather proud of their white skin, and tending to denigrate dark south indians when opportunity avails. South Indians have a sort of inverted snobbery about their more aboriginal blood.

spin

You're thanking him for the pedantic lack of perception about the significance of coins that added him to my ignore list. Not a good sign. But any port in the storm...

I don't assume Alexander exists. The evidence is in. You simply refuse to play with a full deck and so you come up will biased hands.

Excuse me? You want to dispute Pericles based on what? You have problems with the mix of contemporary literary sources? Problems with Thucydides? Xenophon? All the others? What about the copies of his bust?

This basic approach is when one applies the same rigor that is found in history to the figure of Jesus, we will apply to popular history the same rigor and ignore the reality of historical research in the specialist historical field. We don't know the actual historical materials behind the existence of these people so we will ignore it and assume that because we can't see the rigor involved then others must be just as biased as we are.

This is your problem, Gamera. Not one of history. You are in denial about historical processes -- which don't work your way -- and use your lack of knowledge in the field as a yardstick. It's only kosher in apologetics, mate.


spin

Didymus

That's not surprising. Virtually nothing is at stake with regard to Socrates existence or non-existence.

Virtually no one has a financial interest, a theological interest, or even much of an academic interest, in Socrates' historicity. No human child is taught that he will suffer for all eternity if he doesn't believe that Socrates existed, and no major industry would collapse if his non-existence were proven.

The presumption that Socrates existed does not impel any significant numbers of human beings to act in any particular way. If we were to discover beyond a doubt he didn't exist, nothing about the modern world would be altered - except, of course, our beliefs about the existence of Socrates.

None of these things can be said about Jesus.

Didymus

ynquirer

Therefore, the question about Jesus' historicity is not scientific, but ideological, isn't it?

ynquirer

You are welcome, Gamera. Your point is good.

It is a pity that some people have failed to be sensible enough to understand the thread proposed by Ben C Smith, which you and others as well as I have tried to follow. Both you and I, of course, think that Alexander the Great is a historical person. What we have endeavored is just to show how easy is to deconstruct a person whose footprints are since long near lost in the darkness of time past. Yet, alas!, Xenophon and Thucydides are good witnesses to Pericles, but Josephus and Tacitus are not so to Jesus. All this quite clear shows the intolerance of some participants - a fundamentalism of the opposite sign - in the Jesus debate, and their irremediable lack of sense of humor.

At the end of the day, perhaps being in spin’s ignore list is not that bad.:boohoo:

youngalexander

Hey, watchit sport!

That's better. Apology accepted.