413 KARSTEN DAHMEN KING IN A SMALL WORLD: DEPICTIONS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON HIS SHIELDS AND ARMOUR 1 Most archaeologists and historians at some point in their academic career meet the Great Alexander. For some it is only a brief encounter, others are strongly taken by his deeds and legend, but all are proof the eternal validity of Arrian’s statement in his preface of the ‘Anabasis of Alexander’: “There is no one about whom more have written and more in disagreement with each other”, the historian wrote when praising his sources Ptolemy and Aristobulos (Anabasis 1.2). Margarete Bieber, who used Arrian as a mirror of past and contemporary writers, is no exception to this rule in general, but characterized by the fact that she was already in her early 70ies when turning on Alexander in 1949 and in her late 80ies when publishing her monograph in 1964. As far as numismatic sources are concerned she granted to her German background was also very much aware of Theodor Schreiber’s ‘Studien über das Bildnis Alexanders des Großen’ of 1903, who for the first time was heavily depending on coins to illustrate his study. 2 It is with great pleasure that I dedicate the following pages to Prof Draganov, who himself not only has substantially contributed to our knowledge of the region of Alexander’s origin and its neighbours, but also to the numismatic legacy of the great king himself. Among the many posthumous representations of Alexander the Great (born 356 BC, reigned 336–323) on coins of the Roman period there are two groups of coins and medals which stand out because of their material value and the detailed and telling iconography they employ. It is here that we encounter a nearly minuscule Alexander in varying roles depicted on his own armour and that of a Roman tyrant. Our pictural tour will go along the following milestones: I Prelude: Caracalla and Alexander II Alexander’s shield III From Aboukir to Vergina IV More Alexanders in Aboukir and Beroia Surprisingly enough although portraits and statues of Alexander were as said above always in the academic focus, 3 these tiny representations did not receive such an attention. Only recently images of Alexander as shield devices of the Roman emperor Caracalla (reigned AD 198/211–217) on some coins were discussed intensively. Beginning from this starting point I would now like to focus on a very similar phenomenon: Representations of Alexander which present him carrying shields with varying decorations. I: CARACALLA AND ALEXANDER As Dieter Salzmann 4 was able to show, Caracalla is the only Roman emperor, who is represented carrying a shield decorated with an image of Alexander the Great: Coins from Caesarea in Cappadocia 5 (fig. 1 ) and tetradrachms from Heliopolis 6 in today Lebanon (fig. 2 ) combine the imperial armoured bust 1 Elaborated version of a lecture held at a Harvard Museum Symposium (“Sculpture and Coins: Margarete Bieber as Scholar and Collector”) on 30 April 2011 and an extended version of Dahmen 2008a, originally published in German. 2 Bieber 1964; Schreiber 1903:162-195. 3 The latest most comprehensive study still is the one by Stewart 1993. 4 Salzmann 2001. – Imitatio Alexandri by Roman Emperors: Compare now Kühnen 2008. 5 Salzmann 2001:181.188 Type 2 no. 2 pl. 26.1-2. 6 Ibid. 190 type 4 no. 3 pl. 27.1-2; BMC Cappadocia 143 no. 44. Fig. 1: Caracalla. Shield with head of Alexander/ mount Argeios. Bronze coin from Caesareia, AD 197. Fig. 2: Caracalla. Shield with taming of Boukephalos/ eagle. Bronze coin from Heliopolis, AD 215–217. British Museum, Departement of Coins & Medals.