ynquirer

Since existence of coins is proof of historicity, must one assume that Alexander was Zeus’ son and that Zeus himself once was a historical person?:huh:

spin

Doh! :banghead:

ynquirer

Do you mean 'yes'?

spin

Read my lips.

ynquirer

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

Good point.

(When I stop laughing I'll tell something else.)

ynquirer

Now, seriously.

Every coin has an obverse (A) and a reverse (B). The theory seems to be that it is ok for a coin to have a reverse that represents either a deity or an animal or the personification of abstract notions - justice, for instance, - provided that the obverse represents the minting prince. Accordingly, a coin with Alexander in the obverse - his purported condition as a son of a god being appropriately discounted - would be full proof of Alexander’s historicity.

Unfortunately, the theory fails in dealing with Greek coins. Check this out:

http://www.rosenblumcoins.com//36b#greek

It contains a list of 74 Greek/Hellenistic coins. It may be a representative sample, if you wish - otherwise, you may choose a different sample. Many of the coins do have both obverse and reverse decorated with deities, animals and/or abstract personifications. For some of them images are supplied. I find these particularly interesting:

No.198: (A) Head of Artemis/(B) Lion
No.211: (A) Head of Hercules/(B) Octopus
No.211a: (A) Zeus enthroned/(B) Dionysos
No.224: (A) Head of Demeter/(B) Prow of ship
No.232: (A) Head of Athena/(B) Hippocamp
No.240: (A) Satyr and Nymph/(B) Geometric symbol

No.241: (A) Head of Hercules as Alexander/(B) Zeus, is the coin spin mentioned. This coin compares to the other six in mythological contents.

If the former six coins are not admitted to afford any historic proof of the existence of the entities represented in them, why must one condone No.241 to bear witness to Alexander’s historicity?

mountainman

Before that, every coin has a mint, where it was made.
The mint is usually owned by the person on the coin.
They made their own coins. Most of these people
were military commanders, with big armies. They often
paid the army by means of these coins.

spin

And they had to have control of the territories where the mints were. Alexander coins come from Arados, Susa, Alexandria, Babylon, and Asia Minor, as well as Greece. A Greek doesn't issue coins from a Persian mint unless Persia was his.

Early Alexander coins adhered to Chalchidian League weight specifications used by Philip II and these not strangely were from Greek mints. Later Alexander used Attic weight standards and these were consistent across his conquests.

Coins don't crop up out of vacuums. They have a context. They are an evolving politico-cultural artefact. They represent the politics of their time and bear signs of the authority behind them. In our case, we are dealing with an authority which is nominated as Basileos Alexandros (BA, etc), an authority which extended from Greece to Persia and included the Levant and Egypt.


spin

ynquirer

Thus, one must assume that the coin with Artemis on one side and a lion on the other was minted by the goddess herself? Or else by the lion?:huh:

ynquirer

Alexander is a most suspect name. In Greek language it means “a man who protects,” or “a protector.”

The Aryan invaders that took over the now-called Andhra Pradesh state in Central India and subjected the population of Dravidian stock – self styled “Protectors,” or kapu. Indo-European conquerors, possibly of Hurrite stock from the now-called Kurdistan, founded Assur in the early second millennium BC and self-styled “protectors” as well – as in the name Bel-kap-kapu. Therefore, there seems to have been a long tradition of Indo-European conquerors that self-styled “protectors” of the peoples they subjected to their rule. (As late as in the twentieth century still Morocco and Syria became French Protectorates and Iraq a British one.)

Now, that many coins bear the inscription Basileos Alexandros (BA) may only mean that someone minted those coins who self-styled “King-Protectors” of the conquered peoples over whom they ruled.