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TEX T AND IMAGE: ALEXANDER THE GREAT,COINS AND ELEPHANTS *R. J. LANE FOX

Primary evidence for Alexander the Great is rare enough for any aaditions to deservehistorians attention, even if they reopen questions which are old rather than helping us toanswer questions which are new. Early in 1973, a coin hoard of exceptiona l interest wasbrought to light in Iraq, reportedly from Babylon itself and thanks to the efforts ofN. D u n , Nancy M. Waggon er, H. Nicolet-Pierre, 0. Morkholm and M. J. Price, thegreater part of it has now been published, together w ith one o r two add itions to the mainbulk which had become separated before passing through the trade. Discussion of thehoards contents owes a particular debt to the develop ing views of M . J. Price, beginningin 1982,2 and a notable contribution by P. Bernard in 1985 which suggested Indiananalogies and a new date and context for the hoards most remarkable finds.3 Both ofthem (and W. Hollstein in their wake)4 have added literary evidence to the debate andtried to interpret the new finds historically. As yet, Alexander historians have taken littlenotice in print of this new evidence : their sug gestions have fallen behind the increasedrange of the hoard an d the grou nd gained by numismatists co ntinuing researches. I ow eknowledge of the hoard to U. Wartenberg at the British M useum and here I wish to bringits importanc e to wider no tice among historians; to return to the theories and indicationsof date and to consider whether literary evidence can help us to give the coins a contextand o rigin. There are questions of method here, which these new co ins pose very clearly.Various texts have been cited, on the assumption that what survives from what waswritten can h elp us to interpret what survives from what was struck. I wish to ex plore thisassum ption and to reconsider the texts in question before em phasizing the interest of theon e text, not cited, w hich fits facts about the coins themselves.

* I am grateful to C. J . Howgego an d U . Wartenberg for their help. I dedicate this paper to thememory of M. J . Price whose work is its starting-point and whose discussions and criticisms haveimproved it at various points.N. Durr, Neues aus Babylon SM 94 (1974) 33-36; H. Nicolet-Pierre, Monnaies AIElephant,BSFN 33 (1978) 401-03; 0. Mgrkholm, A Coin of Artaxerxes 111, NC XIV (1974)1. Coin Hoards I (1975), no. 38 =V I I I (1994) no. 188 (as cited in Price p. 51).* M. J . Price, The Porus Coinage of Alexander the Great: A Symbol of Concord an dCommunity, in S . Scheers, ed. Studia Paul0 Naster Oblata I , Orientalia Louvaniensia 12 (Leuven1982) 75-88; M. J . Price, Circulation at Babylon in 323 B.C., in W. E. Metcalf ed., Mnemata:Papers in Memory of Nancy M . Waggoner (1991) 63-72; M. J. Price, The Coinage in the Name ofAlexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus 1-11 (Zurich, London 1991) 51, 452, 456-57(henceforward Price, Coinage ....).3 P. Bernard, Le Monnayage dEudamos, Satrape Grec du Punjab et Maitre des Elephants, inG. Gnoli and L. Lanciotti eds., Orientalia Jose ph Tucci Memoriae Dicata I (Rome, 1985) 65-94.4 W. Hollstein, Taxiles Pragung fur Alexander den Grossen, Schweiz. Numism. Rundschau 68(1989) 5-18.

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88 BICS-41- 996T h e hoards contents were scattered after discovery and their regrouping has requiredtime, international observa tion and careful research. Mu ch of it has been the work of M .J. Price who has published a list of contents, the culmination of more than a decade ofinquiry. A ll of the coin s are silver and briefly, his list identifies the follow ing types ?1. Eight Alexander decadrachms, of the usual types: Heracles in the lion-skin helmeton the obverse; the seated Zeus with eagle and sceptre on the reverse. These fine coinshave always been rare and the new finds include several with a mint-mark unknown

previously.2. Price reports a large number of Alexander tetradrachms, as yet unpublished. Thetypes, as usual, are similar to those on the decadrach ms.3. Seven examples of the silver decadrachms which historians have named the PorusMe dallion. Th e types will need further explanation, but they m atch those known s incethe discove ry of the first example in 1887.6On the obverse, the sam e figure, armed w ith aspear, attacks an eleph ant from the rear, on which two Indian figures are mou nted. On thereverse a figure in a plumed helm et holds a thunderbolt in his right hand and a sp ear in hisleft, while a winged victory flies to crown him overhead.These coins were not perfectly cut and struck and the distribution of the image variesfrom piece to piece; the newly found examples make several details clearer. Price hasargued tha t a more apt descr ip t ion of the i r weight i s five shekel pieces, notdecadrach ms, and I will follow his argume nt on the point , a lthough it has been ~ o n te s t e d .~Like the previously known examples, none of these coins carries an inscription or acaption fo r its images. Ho wever, both the old and new exam ples have the sam e marks: Zon the side with the elephant and the letters AB in monogram on the other side, thereverse.The lettering is not new, but there is an exciting new fact about it: it reappears on thenext items which I cite.4.The coins in question are 1 1 silver tetradrachms or two-shekel pieces, as Pricemo re aptly describes them. Th e obverse shows a bowm an who is bearded and whose hairis gathered in a top-knot: his long bow rests on the ground. These features matchdescriptions of the characteristics of Indian warriors which occur in the primary historiansof Alex ander, as Price and Bernard have also recognized.* On the reverse stands anotherIndian characteristic: an eleph ant, similar to the elephant on the Porus Med allions.Co ins of this type were not known to us before. They carry no inscription, but they arelinked to the Poru s Me dallions by mor e than a similarity between eleph ants. They sharethe sam e marks but on different sides: Z on the side with the eleph ant (here, the reverse)and th e mono gram A B on the other, the obverse. For the first time, therefore, the PorusMedallions can be related with certainty to som ething else: to silver coins, manifestly ofGreek des ign, which sho w the two mos t distinctive Indian weapo ns of war.

5. Th e next item extends the imagery of Indian warfare. In 1978, Mm e. Nicolet-Pierrepublished a perceptive note on a type of silver tetradrachm, or two-shekel piece, whichhad reached the Cabinet de s Medailles in Paris and was evidently part of the 1973 hoard.9Three examples are now known but their types, too, were unknown previously. The5 Price, Circulation at Babylon ..., (n. 2) (1991) 69-72.6 P. Gardner, New Greek Coins of Bactria and India, NC VII (1887) 177.7 Price, The Porus Coinage .. ., n. 2) (1982) 76 an d n. 4.

Arr. Ind. 16.4-6; Price, The Porus Coinage ..., (n. 2) (1982) 81-82: Bernard, LeNicolet-Pierre (n. 1) 402-03.Monnayage dEudamos . (n . 3) 72-79.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 89obverse, in Prices words, shows an elephant r.; on which two figures, one turningaround and carrying a long standard, the other, in front, holding a goad.I0 The reverseshows bowman and charioteer in quadriga r.. This type recalls the scenes of royal war-charioteering in Pharaonic Egypt and especially those of the Assyrian kings. However, P.Bernard has connected it to the style of Indian warfare in the Vedic period, as recoveredby modern scholarship. The bowman, the charioteer, the two-wheeled chariot and theteam of four horses relate neatly to descriptions in Indian epics of a heros manner offighting. Chariots are also well-attested as an Indian weapon against Alexander. TheIndian context is clearly the right one, given the Indian nature of the scene on the obverse.These coins, too, carry no inscription and lack any lettering: their style and design arerather more crude. Their elephant and its gait are manifestly different from the elephantson the other types in the hoard. We cannot, therefore, assume that they were struck fromthe same source as the E / AB coins.The two issues with Indian types and the seven further examples of the PorusMedallion have attracted most interest in published work to date, but the hoard containsa wide range of other coins too.6. A range of lion-staters whose type is well known: eighteen bear the name ofMazaeus, the veteran satrap under the last Achaemenids who was reinstated as Satrap ofBabylonia by Alexander and died during Alexanders reign.

7. An imitation Athenian owl whose legend has been admirably deciphered by A. F.Shore as Artaxerxes Pharaoh in Demotic script and assigned to Memphis in the lateryears of Artaxerxes HI, reconqueror of Egypt.*8. Another imitation Athenian owl, attributable to Sabakes, the Persians satrap inEgypt before the defeat at Issus in autumn 333 BC.9. A further range of imitation Athenian owls, some of which bear an Aramaic legendread as MZDK: numismatists identify its subject as the Mazaces of our Greek texts, thesatrap of Egypt who surrendered the country to Alexander in 332. Price associates thesecoins with two separate mints in Babylonia during Alexanders reign, developing a theoryadvanced by E. T. Newell in 1938.13 Historians of Alexander have nonetheless resistedthis notion and the point needs further discussion.

10.A silver shekel, attributed by Price to Hierapolis in Syria.11. Some imitation Athenian owls from Phoenicia, of which one is certainly from Gaza12 . A Persian siglos from Sardis.13. A silver tetradrachm of Philip I1 whose reverse shows the jockey type, with a

garlanded altar.14. A silver coin from Cos whose presence at Babylon Price briefly describes asexceptional and whose interest I wish to emphasize later.Price has emphasized that nothing ascribed to this hoard belongs demonstrably to theyears after Alexanders death. Nonetheless P. Bernard has advanced a theory whichwould place the Porus Medallions and the Indian types as late as 317/6. Whichever

and earlier, therefore, than Alexanders destruction of the city in 332 BC.

l o Price, Circulation at Babylon ..., n. 2) 70; however, Price, Coinage I(1991) 452 n. 9 arguesthat the standard-bearer on th e elephant is also carrying a spear; Hollstein (n. 4) 12 n. 54 rejects thisspear,apparently correctly; Bernard (n. 3) 79 cites Indian parallels for the standard bearer. I Bernard (n.3) 74-79 with S. D. Singh, Ancient Wagare with Special Reference to the VedicPeriod (Leiden 1965).A. F. Shore, The Demotic Inscription on a Coin of Artaxerxes, NC 14 (1974) 5-8.E. T. Newell, Miscellanea Numismatica, Cyrene to India:, ANSNNM 82 (1938) 62-75 an d82-88.


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90 BICS-41- 996view we prefer, the first remarkable fact is that Alexanders flood of new silver coins didnot drive older silver types out of circulation quite as rapidly or exclusively as historianshave sometimes implied: imitation Athenian owls may even have continued to be struckin Babylonia during his reign. The second remarkable fact is that the Porus Medallionwas not a medallion at all. Seven examples, showing signs of use, existed in this onehoard among other silver currency: evidently they, too, were coins struck for use. Evenmore remarkable is the fact that the Porus type is now linked by lettering to thebowman-and-elephant two-shekel pieces. Any theory of the context of the Porus coinsmust now account for this issue, previously unknown, with its imagery of Indian war-arms.The most heartening fact is that coins of a previously unknown type can still appear inthe context of a datable hoard and can connect to events in the lifetime of Alexander.What has happened here can happen again. Another cache of new coin-evidence mightchange our interpretations to a degree which is now unlikely for interpretations which arebased only on literary texts.

Beyond these facts, questions of interpretation extend across a wide field: what werethe origins of the two newly-found types with their images of Indian warriors? How dowe best explain the connection of one of these types to the big Porus pieces which shareits letter marks? In the light of this connection what is the likeliest origin of the Porustypes and what do they portray? On the reverse of the Porus coins, most historians haveseen Alexander himself holding a thunderbolt in his righi hand: if they are correct, wasthis type struck in Alexanders lifetime and what does this symbol of Zeus mean? Thelongest recent study of Alexanders divinity, by E. Badian, discusses the relevance ofcoin-evidence from both local and imperial mints, but does not even mention therelevance of the Porus pieces.14 As for their connection with one of the Indian types,M. J. Price has advanced a theory which links them to the major themes of communityand concord in Alexanders dealings with barbarians. As a commentary oncontemporary political events, he concluded in 1982, the Porus coinage is one of themost powerful statements in the history of numi~rnatics.~ ivinity and concord arecertainly powerful themes in modern studies of Alexander. The dating, imagery andinterpretation of this new evidence deserve historians further attention.

I1The dating of the hoard requires knowledge of the latest coins contained within i t and anargument that the absence of any later coins is significant. Arguments from the physicalstate of the coins and their degree of wear are much more hazardous. It may be temptingto argue that the freshest coins ought to be the latest in date, while the worn ones must beearlier, but hoarders can store, retain or acquire pieces for such a variety of indefinablereasons that arguments from the coins condition to a closely-defined date are extremelyprecarious. We should also remember that this particular hoard has had to bereconstituted after parts of it had passed into the trade. It was not found and classified in

l4 E. Badian, The Deification of Alexander the Great in H. J. Dell, ed., Ancient MucedonianStudies in Honor of Charles F. Edson (Thessaloniki 1981) 27-71; G. L. Cawkwell , TheDeification of Alexander th e Great in I. Worthington eds., Ventures into G reek H istory (Oxford1994) 293-307 also omits all reference to the coin.

l5 Price, The Porus Coinage .. . (n . 2) 85; compare Price, Coinage . . 453: a visible recordof Alexanders policy of concord and community with the conquered peoples of the East.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 91full by an archaeologist or numismatist when first brought to light. Bits may have beenlost, concealed or missed, despite careful researches since.In 1982, Price emphasized two arguments for dating the hoard as then known. Thosecoins which could be dated independently of the hoard were all coins originating not laterthan 32312 BC. This argument applied especially to the lion staters, the Alexanderdecadrachms and the large number of Alexander tetradrachms. The tetradrachms includedcoins stamped with the letters MkAY: the accepted arrangement of these issues datescoins with this mark as the latest from Alexanders major mint in the East.I6 The letterscontinue on the first issues in the name of Philip 111, but none of these Philip I11tetradrachms is reported to have been present in the hoard, according to sources whomPrice describes as reliable. Their presence in other hoards, datable after 32312, is sowidespread that their absence in this case is significant. Price concludes: on the evidenceof the Alexander coinage this hoard found at Babylon was buried almost certainly in32312 BC before the coinage in the name of Philip had gained currency.17 We should notbe too precise about the date of burial, but a date in or before 323 BC does fi t the contentswhich we can best classify.In 1985, P. Bernard argued nonetheless that this date did not fit the big Porus coinageand its connected issue in the hoard. There is a constant risk of crediting innovations toAlexander and forgetting to consider his immediate successors: Bernard, who has warnedagainst the risk elsewhere, proposed Eudamus, satrap of the Punjab, as originator of thePorus coins during his visit westwards to Susa in 31716. In 1982, Price had advanced anargument which would at once exclude such a dating: he had emphasized the worncondition of the big Porus pieces, a feature which led him to date them even earlier inAlexanders reign than anyone had previously considered. However, the degree to whichthe big Porus coins are worn, rather than indistinctly struck, is a matter for argument, asBernard rightly observed.* Even if their wear was serious, it would not refute Bernardsdating. Across a span of ten years or so, evidence of wear is an uncertain basis for aprecise dating. In this particular hoard, some of the pieces which we know to be dated to328/7 or earlier are in a particularly fresh condition. From wear alone, we wouldseriously misdate them.In discussions published in 1991, Price has not developed the argument from wear buthas rested his case on the dating of the hoard itself. Its other datable contents, he remarks,discredit P. Bernards suggestion.19 Numismatically, Bernards position is not refutedbut it is extremely unlikely: he would have to argue that the Porus coinage was strucksix or seven years later than anything else in the hoard, that hoarders do odd things andthat this hoarder simply ignored all other silver coins struck between 323 and 317 and forreasons which we cannot fathom, retained only the Porus issues out of all possibilities.Numismatically, this position is forced, but it should not be rejected on coin-evidencealone. Bernard argued for Eudamus on the strength of textual evidence and here histheory runs into insuperable difficulties. In 3 1716, Eudamus brought elephants and severalhundred footsoldiers from India to Susa where he joined a coalition among several ofAlexanders successors.2oEumenes is said to have given him 200 talents from Susastreasury as a special favour, but these coins are nowhere said to have been struck

I6 Price (n.2) 79; Price, Coinage .. I 454.Price (n.2) 65.Bernard (n.3) 90 11.94.I 9 Price (n. 2) 65 n.5; Price, Coinage .... 1.452n.9.*O D.S. 19.15.5.


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92 BICS-41- 996specially by or for Eu dam us himself. Th e silence is not decisive because our textsmention coinage haphazardly but more importantly, the types of the Porus coins andtheir connected issue in the newly-found hoard do not suit Eudamuss known career. Heis nowhere said to hav e brought Indian bowm en with him, yet their imag e is clear on thebowman-and-elephant coinage. As W . Hollstein has also observed, the striking of bigsilver pieces showing Alexander, a thunderbolt and a Victory would have been anextremely assertive act by a man who was only one member of a grand coalition.21 Itsimagery was also ill-suited to this time and author. In 317/6, when Eudamus arrived,Eu me nes was fostering cult before Alexan ders empty throne during which the successorspaid him proskynesis as a god.22 How ever, the five-shekel coin sh owed Alexan der inmilitary dress, not divine apparel, and as we shall see, the thunderbolt in his hand did notr a i s e h i m u n a m b i g u o u s l y t o d i v i n e s t a t u s . I n 3 1 7 / 6 , a n i s s u e f o r E u d a m u s scontemporaries would probably have been more explicit. As for its Indian warriors onelephants, one of them (we shall also see) must be Porus, fighting valiantly. Eudamus,however, had earlier killed Porus by treachery and would hardly have chosen orwelcomed a coin-type which showed Poruss finest hour of idealized combat withAlexan der.23 Bernard anticipates som e of these problem s, but his theory about E uda mu sis too fanciful to stand against altern ative theories wh ere much less has to be forced.On e alternative would be to date the Porus coinage within a year or so of Alexandersdeath. Numismatically, the rest of the hoard cannot absolutely exclude such a date andhistorically we can imagine (but not document) how these coin types might have beenstruck to evoke Alexanders great victory i n India at a time when the retention of theIndian conquests seemed desirable but precarious. Our sources various lists of theprovinc es distributed to gove rnors at Babylon and in 32 1 are unfortunately incom pleteand un certain, but they d o reveal the continuing impo rtance of the two Indians, Porus andTaxiles, in the lands of Alexanders Indian conqu ests.24 Even if we d o not followBosworths recent attempt to assign all southern India to Porus already in Alexanderslifetime,25 it is clear that Porus and Taxiles were increasingly powerful. Immediately afterAlexanders death, when Poruss power was growing, might there perhaps be occasionfor a coin-type which emp hasized his defeat by A lexander? The related coins showingIndian archers and elephants might ev oke the sam e victories or be struck in order to hireIndian troops.For the sake of an alternative hypothesis, tw o persons are worth con sidering in 323 /2, atime of uncertainty about the Indian territories. The first is Peithon son of Krateuas whowas sent against the rebellious Greeks in the upper satrapies soon after Alexandersdeath.26 His march was reinforced by troops sen t from the satraps27 and as Porus andTaxiles w ere still recog nized rulers of Indian areas and a third satrapy with Indians was

2 1 Hollstein (n . 4) 15-16.22 D.S. 18.61.6.23 D.S. 19.14.6.z4 Sources listed by A. B. Bosworth, The Indian Satrapies Under Alexander the Great,Antichthon 17 (1983) 37-46 and L. Schober, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Babyloniens und derOberen Sutrupien von 323-303 B.C. (Frankfurt 1981) 11-26 whose discussion is rightly morecautious.25 Bosworth (n . 24) 39, forcing Photius 71B 40ff. which need only mean that Alexander had givenPorus and Taxiles areas of rule, not the particular area which they held, or received, in 321.Schober (n. 24) 23-26 gives a more balanced view of the possibilities.2h W . Heckel, The Marshals ofAlexunders Empire (London 1992) 276-79 lists all sources.27 D.S. 18.7.3.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 93adjacent to Taxiless rule, these troops might have included Indians. W as the bowman-and-elephant type struck for them, while the big Porus coins were an issue forAlexan ders main army , struck at Babylon and re-emphasizing victory in India soon afterhis death? No text, however, specifies Indians among Peithons helpers, although thetexts of his m arch ar e not detailed. Alternatively, we m ight think of the o ther Peithon, sonof Ageno r, wh o was an em ergent figure among Alexanders generals and satraps in India.He had governed the southern Indian conquests on the Indus a nd received a satrapy nextto Taxiless realm after Alexanders death: finally he moved west to Babylon in 317/6.Might he have struck the big Porus coins in India to exalt Alexanders victory over hisroyal neighbour Porus, a rival with whom, perhaps, Peithons enmity ran high? Before321 , migh t he also have needed coins which would appeal to Indian troops andmercenaries and m ight he have struck the Indian bowman-and-elephant type in 323/2?These alternatives are pure speculations because no text supports them: I will arguethat the letter marks on the coins make better sense at an earlier date and place. Here, Icite them only to air possibilities but if we look much further ahead in time or try toconne ct the coin-typ es with events further w est, two limiting points in the texts m ust beborne in mind. Indians on elephants did feature in the early war between Ptolemy andPerdiccas, but in all the events in Asia and further west, Indian bowmen are nevermen tioned after A lexanders death. In 32211, when th e designs were laid fo r Alexandersfuneral chariot, quite a different image of Indian warfare to the one on the big Po rus coinswas approved in Alexanders honour. Elephants were shown, but an Indian was shownriding in front and a Macedonian behind in customary armour on the s am e beast.** Th emilieu from w hich this memorial to Alexander emerg ed is not one in which co ins with ascene of Indians only on an elephant and Alexander attacking them on horseback seemsentirely at hom e.

If we credit one or other Peithon with striking the Porus coinage, we also have toaccept that specimens of the bowman-and-elephant type could have travelled back fromIndia to B abylon and joine d ou r hoard, yet this return journey happened so quickly thatthe hoarder, meanwhile, had no othe r silver coins struck la ter than 32312 which he wishedto include. Alternatively , the coin-types would have had to be struck at a central mint inAsia, at Baby lon o r Susa perhaps, and sent out to Peithon on the Indian frontiers, whileso m e remained behind for our hoarder. Hypotheses have to be multiplied, whereas thereis a much simpler alternative: the Porus coins were struck at a date between spring 327 ,when A lexander in vaded India, and early summ er 323, when he died.Already by 1926 , there was thought to be a consen sus that the Porus medallionsoriginated in Alexan ders lifetime. P. Bernard , conve rsely, believes that an origin underAlexander is itself impossible to credit.29 Alexander (he argu es) would surely hav e puthis own nam e on a coin show ing him sous Iaspect 2 demi divinisC dun fils de Z eus ; thecoin s are poorly struc k and design ed by un artiste dun niveau bien infkrieur; desp ite theroyal corps of elephants outside Alexanders tent, elephants (Bernard thinks) were notparticularly important for him; why, too, would he show Indian warriors on coins of hisown? These objections are not cogent. Alexanders issues of double darics and lionstaters are near con tempo raries of the Porus issue, but neither carries his ow n name.30 Th ePorus coins might have been struck by a subordinate with royal approval, minting at aplace where the workmanship was not first class. Captions were not added because the2x D.S. 18.27.1.29 Bernard (n. 3) 80-8 1.3o A. R. Bellinger, Essays on the Coinage of Alexander the Great (New York 1963)66.


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94 BICS-41- 996imagery might have been so obvious to contemporaries that none was needed. As for theelephants and Indian warriors, they could indeed represent foes or forces to whoseimagery, or reality, Alexander wished to appeal. He did, after all, conquer them both andthen employ them for the first time in Greek w arfare.Numismatically, a date in or just after Alexanders lifetime now seems virtuallycertain. Textually, nothing in our evidence matches up with such a coinage in (say) 322/1,whereas the years 327-324 are full of textual possibilities. I will also argue that such adate suits the coins lettering. Historically, therefore, the consensus is well founded andalthough it is not proven, the alternatives in 323/1 require too many hypotheses to beworth pursuing instead.Am ong the hoards other bits and pieces, there are still some points to be emphasizedwhich support a dating before Alexanders death. Those coins which can be datedindependently are all coins from Alexanders years of rule in Asia or a period shortlybefore it. Published discussions concern a coin of Artaxerxes from Egypt whichMorkholm and Shore correctly ascribed to Artaxerxes 111 in the late 340dearly 3 3 0 ~ ~ coin of Sabakes and coins of Mazakes have been connected convincingly with the lasttwo Persian satraps in Egypt who governed the country before and after ISSUS.~*hecoins of Gaza and Philip I1 also point backw ards before Alexanders conquests. In 1989,a silver coin from Cos emerged and in 1991 was accepted by M . J. Price as a member ofthe hoard. He describes its appearance at Babylon as exceptional but does not commentfurther on its type.33To judge from his photograph, there is more to be m ade of it.On the obverse, a head in the lion-skin helmet of Heracles faces left; on the reverse, arectangular dotted border contains a crab with the word K RIRN above and a clubimmediately beneath. Under the club is the name AIRN. Between the crabs claws, thephotograph shows a twisted object: to judge from other Coan coins with the crab sym bol,it ought to be a knucklebone or a snail-shell.The names on Coss coinage have been understood as names of the states eponymousmagis t r a te , o r monar~hos ;~~he suggestion has been widely endorsed and it is nicelysupported for the period from c. 300-145 BC when about half of the names on C oancoins are matched by the names of monarchoi attested in surviving inscription^.^^ In1978, S . M. Sherwin-Whites lengthy study of the islands history accepted Hills theoryand its extension back into the fourth century BC as probable although no inscriptionalevidence could support it for the earlier period. She also inclined to a widely-held view,that the institution of the monarchos had begun on Cos in the synoecism of 366 /5, that itstenure was annual (as attested for the Hellenistic period) and that from the 360s to 300,these annual m onarchoi issued coins stamped with their own names.36After 300 BC, we have evidence: can we read back its pattern to coins of the earlierperiod? Historians of Cos assume that we can, although we should perhaps be wary ofassuming that the monarchoi changed yearly when first instituted. If the Coan historiansare right, Dion becomes the senior magistrate on Cos; even if they are wrong, he ispresumably a person of influence. The name is no rarity, although Sherwin-Whites Coan

D 1 Morkholm (n. 1) 1-4; Shore (n. 12) 5-8.3* Price (n. 2) (1991 ) 67-68.33 Price (n. 2) (1991) 69.34 W. R. Paton, E. L. Hicks, Inscriptions ofCos (Oxford 1891) 348ff.35 S. M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos (Gottingen 1978) 188ff.36 Sherwin-White (n. 36) 187 ff.; 70-71.


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R . J. LANE FOX: TEXT A N D IMAGE 95prosopography lists very few known examples.37It has appeared, however, in two verysuggestive settings.In the Pityos hoard, found on Chios, Coan silver coins with Dions name occur in ahoard which includes coins of Pixodarus, the last Hecatomnid who ruled as satrap inCaria before his deposition in 336 BC.38 The terminal date for this hoard is accepted asthe mid to late 330s: the upper date for individual pieces in it extends as far as the 350sbecause coins of Mausolus were also present. Dions coinage on Cos must then belongbetween these two dates. A full study of Coss coins in the fourth century is now inprogress: die-links and the evidence of further hoards may allow even greater precision.Epigraphically, however, we already have an important Dion from Cos, attested since1972 through the publication of an early third-century BC inscription from L a b r a ~ n d a . ~ ~Its central section recites an earlier decree with honours for Dion son of Diodorus, theCoan which were granted by the Plataseis, a Carian community: they include taxexemptions, the right to own property and much else besides for Dion and hisdescendants because Dion had been helpful, a benefactor and proxenos. These honourswere granted while Pixodarus rules as satrap in Caria, between 341 and 336, therefore,fitting beautifully with the context for Dions coins which is given by the Pityos hoard onChios.It is probable that a Dion was Coss monarchos; certainly, a Dion of Cos was activefor Carian interests and received a tax-free estate on Carian soil under the last of theHecatomnids. Dion, the honoured benefactor in Pixodaruss Caria, was a Coan who hadthe power to work significant favours between 341 and 336. Dion, named on the silvercoinage, was a Coan of importance, probably monarchos on the island. His namesappearance on the coinage coincided, surely, with his time of influence duringPixodaruss reign: the silver coin, found in Babylon, should have been struck between341 and 336, fitting neatly with the dating of other stray coins in the hoard.If G. F. Hill was right in proposing a further connection, more favours from Dion mayyet be ~isible.~On 1900, Hill argued ingeniously that several portrait heads of Heracles ina lion skin cap on Coan coins from the mid fourth century strongly resemble the featuresof Mausolus himself, as portrayed in the famous Mausolus-statue from the Mausoleum.The main similarities lie in the line of the nose and the downward sweep of themoustache, although Hill went further: the silky Oriental moustache, the treatment of theeye, the slight tinge of melancholy all combine to recall the likeness of the satrap. Thetheory was accepted without reservation by Sherwin-White in 1978 and repeatedly citedas probable or fact in S. Hornblowers Muusolus in 1982;41 t has become one of thebuilding-blocks in attempts to write a history of Hecatomnid rule abroad. Numismatistswould nowadays be much more wary.42 The question of human portraiture and itsinfluence on the features of a god or hero on coins is highly speculative and the37 Sherwin-White(n. 36) 434.38 A . Lobbecke, Munzfund auf der Insel Chios,Zts. fur Num. XIV (1887) 149-57.39 J . Crampa, ed. Labraunda: The G reek Inscriptions iii.2 (Stockholm 1972)no. 42 lines 8-18; S .Hornblower,Mausolus (Oxford 1982) 178.40 G. . Hill, Some Coins of Southern Asia Minor in W. H. Buckler, W. M . Calder (eds.),Anatolian Studies Presented to W. . Ramsay (Manchester 1923) 207-09, pll. ix-x.41 Sherwin-White (n. 36) 70-71; Hornblower (n. 40) 134,272n. 404; plate 36C (probably).42 R. A. Moysey, Observations on the Numismatic Evidence Relating to the Great SatrapalRevolt of 362/1 BC, REA 91 (1989) 107-39, at 127-30 and 134-36; on portraits ofTissaphemes, M. J . Price, RE A 91 (1989) 106; on Heracles-Alexander,0.Palagia, Imitation ofHerakles in Ruler Portraiture. A Survey, Boreas 9 (1986) 137-51; on Zeus-Antiochus IV : R. R . R .Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford 1988) 39-66.


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96 BICS-41- 996Mausolan label has certainly been applied too hastily to too many different heads ofHeracles since Hill wrote. The likeness which impressed Hill needs to be tested against afull study of Coss coinage and a comparison with othe r heads of Heracles on o ther citiescoins.Perhaps the heads which Hill picked out will survive such study and still stand out asspecial: here, I wish only to emphasize that the same studies should extend to Dionscoinage too. From photographs published in the main sources, it is already evident thatseveral coin-types were struck on Cos in Dions name. S ome have the crab alone, somehave the crab with the shell or knucklebone; some have a Heracles head which facesright; on othe rs, it faces left.43 Th e features vary, but to judg e from Prices photograph,the head on the new Babylon coin is not like those on other Dion issues. If Hills eye forMausolus as Heracles turns out to have any foundation, perhaps we should think inDions case of the influence of a later Hecatomnid, Pixodarus, perhaps, as Heracles onthis distinc tive issue.With or (probably) without a complimentary portrait, Dions coin fits neatly with theBabylon hoards chronology. The hoard also contained a significant number of coin s withan Aramaic legend which numismatists identify with the Mazaces of Greek sources, thesatrap of Egypt who surrendered to Alexander . Here, there are no problems ofchronolog y, because these co ins of the 330s fit neatly with the pattern of the hoards othercontents. Instead there are historical problems, worth revisiting because numismatists andhistorians have been proceeding independently on the point and this new evidenceexc lude s the latest historical theory.Si nc e 19 38, numismatists ha ve usually followed E. T. Newell in dividing coins withthe Aramaic legend MZDK between Egypt and Babylonia and attributing both to theM aza ces of our Alexander historians.4 Th e Egyptian issue coincided with M azac essbrief satrapal rule in Egypt durin g 333/2 which is deducible from our texts; on this theory,the Babylonian issue is placed outside Babylon after Alexanders conquest in 331 BC.Th e new hoard has reinforced the theory of two separate regions for these coins and M . J.Pric e has even identified two distinct Mazaces mints in Babylonia itself.45For historians, these theories are difficult because none of our texts gives M aza ces anyrole in Babylonia under Alexander. In 1965, E. Badian declared the notion part of anumismatists myth (which i t is not) and in 1976, A. B. Bosworth proposed analternative which has passed into his standard commentary on Arrian.46 Bosworthsuggested ingeniously that the Mazaros whom Arrian is alone in mentioning as acommander of the garrison in Susa was in fact the commander under Darius, thatMazaces struck coins only in Egypt and only as satrap under Darius and that theMazaces-issues in Alex and ers Babylonia a re in fact issues of Arrians M azar os, thegovernor of Susa under Darius: on this view they have appeared similar to Mazacessonly because of the similarity of name. On the Babylonian issues, he argue s, the Aram aiclegends are too indistinct for MZ DK to be read with confidence.

43 E. Babelon, Traite de s Mon naies Grecques et Romaines 11 (Paris 1910) 1038-39, esp. no. 1748(Dion coin? Head facing right); B. M . C. Cos, 195 nos. 13+ 14 ; Lobbecke (n . 39) 155+plate VIno. 9 (Dion: head facing left; no knucklebone device). H. Ingvaldsen of Oslo University ispreparing a full catalogue of the coinage of Cos, including the 4th c.44 Newell (n. 13)62-75.45 Price (n. 2) (1991) 68.46 E. Badian, The Administration of th e Empire, G&R 12 (1965) 173 n. 4; A . B. Bosworth,Errors in Arrian, CQ 26 (1976) 117-39.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 97The new hoard proves that this ingenuity is wrong. MZDK is clearly legible on coinsof Babylonian origin; their dies are linked with imitation Athenian owls which werecertainly struck in Babylonia. Furthermore, these coins are manifestly of a different fabricfrom the Egyptian issues, struck under the sam e name.47 Historians may still feel uneasyabout ac cepting an unattested job for Mazaces of sufficient prestige to permit him to coin

in Alexanders Babylonia. The point is not, as Badian implied, that a satrapal coinageunder Alexander is historically implausible under a satraps own name: the issues ofBal akro s in Cilicia refute that claim.48 Th e problem is that our texts d o not give Ma zac esany jo b in Babylonia, although they name quite a cluster of Alexanders m ajor appointeesat this point. I suspect there is simply a gap in their information, but othe r alternatives a repossible. Mazaces may perhaps have coined in Babylonia under Darius in late 333 BCand then moved west to coin again in Egypt after Issus in 33312: further hoard-evidencemay bear on the likelihood of this sequence.49 Or, as Mm e Nicolet-Pierre proposed in1979, the Mazaces coinage in Babylonia was simply a local imitation of the one whichhe issued in Egypt: if people in Babylonia could imitate Athenian owls, could they notimitate Mazaces-pieces from Egypt too?s0 However, his Egyptian issue was brief and theproposed imitations in Babylon in the new hoard outnu mb er the Egyptian originals.Bosw orths further. solution, a change in the text, is the least appealing:s1 he suggestsemending Arrians Mazaros to Mazaces, the ex-satrap of Egypt, and credits him with ajob at Susa under Darius I11 when he had silver owls coined in Babylonia. The job isunattested, the em endation arbitrary, and w hy did an official at S usa coin in Babylonia?The coins of Dion and Mazaces thus bear on wider horizons in the period from341-331 BC . Further hoards and die-studies may refine the possibilities, but the mainpoint still stands: like the hoards coins of Artaxerxes 111, Sabaces, Gaza, Philip I1 andMazaeus, these coins of Dion and Mazaces belong in or before Alexanders years ofconque st. Their presence in the hoard reinforces the view that its contents all originate inAlexanders lifetime.

I11We can now turn to the bigger questions of origin and meaning: if the Porus coinageoriginated during Alexanders lifetime, what did its images signify and where were theystruck? There are questions of method here too: how can we fix the meaning of a uniqueimage without a caption? How reliably can we relate literary texts to a coins occasionand context?

In all probability, the first known example of a big Porus coin derived from the Oxustreasure, found (we now know) at Takht-i-Qobad, near the meeting of the Wakhsh andO xu s rivers.52 In 1887, when publishing it, P. Gardiner drew attention to the coarse and

47 Price (n. 2) (1991) 68.48 H. von Aulock, Die Pragung des Balakros in Kilikien, JNG 14 (1964) 79-82 and Price,Catalogue . 1.370.49 M. J . Price has remarked to me that unpublished evidence of a hoard from Syria makes thisnotion unlikely; M. J. Price, New Owls for the Pharaoh, Minerva 1 (1990) 39-40, for advancenotice.

H. Nicolet-Pierre, Monnaies des deux Derniers Satrapes dEgypte avant Alexandre ..., in 0.Morkholm, N. M. Waggoner (eds.), Greek N umismatics andArchaeology (Wetteren 1979) 229-30.5 1 Bosworth (n. 46) 123 n. 37.52 Bernard (n. 3) 92 n. 99 , citing the 1979 establishment of this point by E. V. Zejmal.


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98 BICS-41- 996brutal types of features of the two figures on the elephant and decided that they musttherefore be Scyths, not Indians. His decision caused him to misdate the new find but hedid confess that looking for the first time at this extraordinary coin or rather medal- ori t is clearly a historical monument- veryone will be tempted to exclaim, Alexanderand P o ~ u s . ~ ~istorians are used to misnomers. Like the Edict of Milan, which wasneither an edict nor issued at Milan, the Porus medallion is now known not to be amedallion: does it relate to Porus or not?Its interpretation rests on a sequence of inferences, beginning from the imagesthemselves, whose details have been clarified by the newly found examples. The key tothem is the figure on the reverse who is holding a thunderbolt. He was both clothed andbooted: the newly-found Babylon coins tell against the previous possibility that he wasshown bare-footed, as if he was a hero or a figure of divine status. He is human, therefore,and i n Alexanders lifetime he must be Alexander himself, the only human to deservesuch an attribute. We also know from texts that Alexander was shown holding athunderbolt by his court artist Apelles in a painting displayed at Ephesus (probably, butnot certainly, in his lifetime).54This specific textual reference fits the interpretation and supports it, but even withoutit, the thunderbolt would be the decisive element because at this date it is exceptional.Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea, is alleged to have called himself a son of Zeus and nameda son Keraunos; he is also said to have been escorted by a golden image of an eagle.55These allegations may be false, but none concerning a thunderbolt is known even toposterity. Two further connections between the coins human figure and other imageshave been proposed, each of which would prove its identity: one, however, is uncertainand the other should now be rejected. In 1981, M. J. Price drew attention to a smallbronze coin from Egypt, struck probably at Memphis soon after 332 BC: he championedthe helmeted head on its obverse as a portrait of Alexander, the successor to the portraitson previous bronze issues of this type.56If so, it is the first lifetime portrait of Alexanderwhich survives from antiquity. His arguments have yet to attract fellow numismatistscomments, and the matter can hardly be decided from reproduced photographs: Price alsosuggests that this helmeted head resembles the head of the figure with the thunderbolt onour big Porus coin. The indistinctness of its features makes it too hard to be sure: as yet,Prices important theory is uncertain at either end.In 1962, W. B. Kaiser had already advanced a reasoned case for connecting thethunderbolted figure on our coin with a figure which is also thunderbolted and stands onthe Neisos gem, now in St Petersburg. Both figures, he believed, were Alexanders,derived from Apelless lost painting.57 His study is regularly cited and widely accepted,but its arguments are very forced and closer study of the new Porus coins undermines

53 P. Gardiner, New Greek Coins of Bactria and India,NC vi i (1887) 177-78.54 Pliny, NH 35.192; the eccentric study by E. Schwarzenberg, The Portraiture of Alexander, inE. Badian (ed.),Alexandre le Grand (Geneva 1976) 223 argues that the portrait was really of Zeus,mistaken for Alexander later, and that it showed a figure on horseback (he cites Ael. VH 2.3:however, Pliny, N H 35.95 tells this story without connecting it to Alexander). His arguments areunconvincing. The Schwarzenberg Head which he promotes does not impress R. R. R. Smith (n.43) 62 an d despite A. Stewart, Faces of Power (Berkeley 1993) 165-71 and 429 has beendiagnosed as a fake by W. Fuchs, Eine Unbekannte Gemme mit Darstellung Alexanders des

Grossen,Ancient Macedonia V. 1 (Thessaloniki) 455-57.55 Justin, Hist. Phil. 16.5.7-10; Memmon, FGH 434 F1.18ff.56 M . J . Price, A Portrait of Alexander the Great from Egypt, Meddelelser fr a Norsk NumismatikForening 1 (1981) 30-37.57 W . B. Kaiser, Ein Meister der Glyptik aus dem Umkreis Alexanders,JDAI 77 (1962) 227-39.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 99them further. K aiser em phasized the two figures pose, the thunderbolt in the right han d,the turn of the head and (he believed) the wearing of a diadem. The newly found coinsm ak e it clear that their Alexander is not wearing a diad em at all and they f urther weakenKaisers arguments from the scale and spacing of the figures. Kaiser has shown no morethan th at the Neisos g em m ay reflect th e Apelles portrait. Th e Porus coins figure exhibitsmo re differences than similarities. O n the Neisos gem , the diadem ed Alexan der is naked;on th e Porus co in, he is not diadem ed and is clothed in a breastplate, boots (pro bably) anda crested helm et with a feather. Th is helmet is not a Persian cap as suggested in previousstudies. Price and o thers have em phasized that it is a crested helmet, of a type attested innorthern Gre ece and Thrace.58The next move is to connect the coins helmeted Alexander with the figure onhorsebac k who is shown on its obverse. They are certainly the sam e person: but wh om isthe Alexander of the obverse attacking on the elephant? The two figures on the animal arebear ded In dian s, with the characteristic Indian hair style: nothing identifies either of themas a royal person, but the scene ought to symbolize a victory, because a Victory crownsAlexander on the coins reverse. W e know from our textual framework that Alexandersgreat victory ove r elephants occurred against Porus on the Hy daspes river in 326 BC. Inthe texts, the legend of his personal combat with Porus grew: a famous story in Lucianshows this legend of a duel with Porus being used (rightly or wrongly) against thereputation of Aristobu lus, an eye-witnes s source.59 Th e victory coin could perfectly welldepict an encounter which never happened, like the close encounter shown betweenDarius an d Alex ander in the Alexan der Mosaic. In the literary sourc es, however, Po rus issaid to have d efended himself valiantly against anyo ne sent to defeat him: how can thistextual tradition fit a scen e in which th e eleph ants driver, not his back-seat com pan ion, isthe on e who is armed and com batting Alexander?

Here, P. Bernard has made admirable progress by adducing evidence from Indian artand literature, later in date, admittedly, than this coin but indicative (he would argue) ofIndian custom and tradition.60 In his exam ples, a king drives his own elephant and sits inthe fro nt position.61 Co ntra ry to modern interpretations, therefore, th e driver on the coinis Porus; he is also the taller of the two figures, matching the sources eye-witnesstradition that the king was of great height. Behind him sits a squire, warding offAlexan ders spea r with his bare hands. Bernard rightly rejects the opinion of B. V. H eadthat the coins artist misrepresented an elephants legs and gait: like the Aristotelianauthor of H istoria Anim alium 498A , he has aptly rendered the curve in the animals lowerlimb.62Plainly, the artist had seen an elep hant and had good sources for what he dep icted.So much for the coin-typ es reference: Alexanders presence is certain and Poruss isoverw helm ingly likely, althoug h neither is captioned. A s for the coins wider m eaning, ithails a great victory for Alexander over a great Indian enemy; Porus is not belittled,although his elephant is turned away from its attacker, because he himself (as Bernard

58 M. C. J . Miller, The Porus Decadrachm and the founding of Bucephala,Anc . World 25 (1994)109-20, at 110-1 1.59 Lucian, How to W rite History 12.6o Bernard (n. 3) 76-79.61 Price; Catalogue ... 1.452 n. 9 argued that on the Indian archer-and-chariot coins, published by

Nicolet-Pierre, i t is the rear figure who holds a spear at the ready, contradicting Bernards newview. But Hollste in (n. 4) 12 n. 54 denies that a spear is shown and Price (n. 2 ) (1991) 70 no longerrefers to this spear, either.62 Bernard (n. 3) 89 n. 85, with his brilliant pages 93-94 on the Eastern root of the further wordp&pplSused by Aristotle; Miller (n. 58) wrongly cites Heads objections.


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100 BICS-41- 996explains) is shown fighting valiantly. On the reverse, however, victorious Alexanderholds a thunderb olt: like the combat of the two kings, this im age is certainly not drawnfrom life. Wh at does it mean?On a coin struck in Alexanders lifetime, the thunderbolt is highly relevant todiscussions of his divine honours. According to the unknown Hellenist ic authorDerkyllos, Poruss elephant counselled Porus to subm it to Alexander because Alexanderwas the so n of Zeus.63 Both M. J. Price and P. Bernard have understood the thunderboltin a similar way: it portrays Alexan der as the son of Zeu s sous Iaspect demi-divinisC.@For P. Goukowsky, the scene goes further: it evokes apotheosis, connected with thepersonal conquest of India and thus with the exploits of Heracles and the theme of a t h e o s a n i k e t ~ s . ~ ~f these scholars are right, this solid primary evidence is mostimpo rtant for Alexander s developing status beside the gods.W e must, however, remember that the coin has no captions. Witho ut them, I sugge st,its mea ning fo r contempo raries can only hav e been open, especially as the image had noprecedent. Some of those who had heard of Alexanders publicity since Siwah mightagree with Price and Bernards reading of the scene as an image of the son of Zeus;those wh o wished to see more m ight even choose to see Alexander as equated with Zeushimself. A s Alexan der returned from Ind ia, such an equation was implied in the flatteryof one such extravagant correspondent, Theopom pus no less, who w rote as if the honou rsfit for Alexander were already honours which would assimilate him to a god.66 It is alsosignificant that on present knowledge, Alexanders successors avoided this imagealtogether: none of them is shown in art or on the coinage with a thunderbolt in one handalthough they were not averse to other allusive, divine attributes6 Unless such imageshave failed to survive, it seems that in their milieu, the image was felt excessive.However, the artists own design may have been more subtle and originally, the coinsimagery may have been intended to say rather less.For awareness of the possibilit ies, we need to look ahead, to the images laterrecurrence. Rulers and thunderbolts surface again on coinage at Rome in the 30s B Cwhere silver denarii of Octavian show O ctavians head on on e side and a herm of Jupiteron the other with a th underb olt below it: the herm h as Octav ians own features.68 In aRoman context, this image can hardly be an unambiguous claim to divine status andhonours but i t certainly implies a special relationship with Zeus. As princeps, however,Augustuss coinage was more restrained, a pattern observed until Domitian. Then,thunderbolts appear on Imperial coins in the mid-80s. An issue for Trajan repeats thetheme, as d oes th e A rch at B e n e ~ e n t u m . ~ ~one of these coins was modelled directly onour Alexa nder co inage, but how explicit is their divine image ry?It is tempting to read them in the extravagant terms of contemporary poetry. Poets inthe Greek world naturally wrote of Augustus as equal to the gods, and in a Romancontext, too, Ovid writes without qualification of Augustus as bearer of Jupiters

63 Derkyll. ap. Plut. De Fluviis 1.6.64 Price, Coinage ... 1.34; Bernard, (n. 3) 80.65 P. Goukowsky, Essai sur les Origines du Mythe dAlexandre I (Nancy 1978) 6G 63.66 Theopomp. FGH 115 F 253 with R. Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London 1973) 412-13;

neither Badian nor Cawkwell (n . 14) even discuss the passage.67 R. R. R. Smith (n. 43) 40-45.68 L. Cerfaux, J. Tondriau, LR Culte des Souverains (Louvain 1957) 334.69 J. R. Fears, Princeps A Diis Electus ... (Rome 1977) 222-23 (Domitian); 228 (Trajans coin);228-33 (the Arch).


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R. J . LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 101thunderbolt. Statius and Martial were every bit as explicit about D ~ m i t i a n . ~ ~owever,what was written in poetry was not necessarily the message of uncaptioned, offical coin-types. Images were not so explicit and hence they still provoke discussion. Domitianscoinage is particularly relevant because i t shows him in military dress, like Alexander,being crowned by a Victory. The fullest recent discussion by J. R. Fears, emphasizes asupposed reference to divine election or investiture of a vice-regent, terms which aremore formal and more suggestive of a coronation than the evidence requires: Fears alsocites the Porus coinage and interprets it as a sign of Alexanders sonship of Zeus and hisuse of the concept of divine election as a means for legitimizing his kingship over hisvast newly-conquered Empire.71These interpretations are excessive, but Fears is right toemphasize that neither Domitian nor Trajan is portrayed as a god and that in art thethunderbolt is not to be seen as a statement of the Emperors assimilation to Jupiter.72The coin which shows Trajan holding a thunderbolt is captioned Optimo PrincipiSPQR, no less. The Arch of Beneventum has been much discussed, but the recentcomments by G. E. M. de Sainte Croix are pertinent.73 He notes how Trajan, a goodRoman Emperor is shown receiving a thunderbolt (almost certainly, although some haveseen the object as a globe): it is bestowed by the hand of Zeus himself. Although deSainte Croix does not mention the Alexander precedent, or the coinages of Domitian andTrajan, he cites a cautious reading of the scene by I. A. Richmond.74 The awesomeconception of this thunderbolt is not advanced at al l in the form of a claim to identitywith Jupiter. In the other half of the scene Trajan is shown as solemnly accompanied inhis round of duties by the protector deities of the Roman state . A claim to divine rightis thus transformed into a proclamation of divine recognition. As de Sainte, Croix rightlyreminds us, we must still ask recognition for what? Is the scene an adventus, in whichcase the handing-over of the thunderbolt (if that is what it is ) must be a generalconcession of power, or is it a profectio, in which event the thunderbolt might perhapssymbolize no more than military power over external barbarians? The latter certainlyseems more relevant to Domitians thunderbolted coin type which was struck i nconnection with barbarian wars.These questions are highly pertinent to the Porus coin. It does not show an adventus,nor (surely) a profectio: rather, Victory crowns Alexander in honour of an achievement.Even so, Alexander is wearing his military clothing and on the obverse, he is shownwithout any divine imagery, attacking a brave enemy as one human warrior againstanother. This clear context of human victory limits the scope of the thunderbolt: i t needonly signify that Alexander conquered barbarian India with the special aid of Zeus. Otherobservers, then or later, might choose to over-interpret the image as Alexander wieldingthe power of a god, but the coin by itself does not impose this strong interpretation. Once,when Alexander was wounded in India, the Athenian athlete, Dioxippus, is said byAristobulus to have greeted the sight of his blood by quoting Homers line about thegods i ~ h o r . ~ ~his wound is usually identified with his chest wound among the

70 F. Sauter,Der Romische Kaiserkult bei Martial und Statius (Stuttgart 1934) 54-78.7 1 Fears (n . 69) 222-27 an d 60-61 (Alexander).72 Fears (n. 70) 226 and 235; Trajans coin, 228.7 3 G. E. M. de Sainte Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek W orld (London 1981) 397.74 I. Richmond, Archae ology and the After Life in P agan and Christian Imagery (Oxford 1950)75 Aristob. FG H 139 F 47.16-17.


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I02 BICS-41- 996Assacen ians, when Alexan der is said to hav e remarked, it is not ichor: i t is bl0od.~6A sit survives, this remark does not happen to be addressed to Dioxippus, but it fits hisflattery neatly and makes up a story whose form and content have other parallels. N odoubt the two co mm ents were given as a pa ir by Ari~ t ob ulu s .~7he anecdote, l ike others,catches very well the two ways of reading the Porus coins image: one is over-interpretation, the other is minimalist and (according to the favourable contemporary,Aristobu lus) Alexander only e ndorsed the latter.

VSo much for the reference of the big Porus coins imagery: can we now fix their originand account for the related Indian issues and the unrelated type with the chariot andelephant? A re any literary texts relevant to this problem ?

In 1982, M . J. Price worked fro m the imagery of the coins alone and propo sed a noveldating.78 Th e big p ieces are linked by their lettering to the sm aller coins with the Indianbowmen and elephants. Images of the main weapons of a conquered enemy would beunprecedented, he suggests, on ancient coinage: these types must therefore symbolizeIndian po wer a t a time when it was still highly estimated or even used by Alex ander. Hetherefore dates the sm aller coins to 32 7, before the defeat of the Indian s at the Hydaspeswhere (he adds) the texts show us that the long Indian bows proved useless, as did theIndian char iots which stuck in the mu d. The dating to 327 suits his view (in 1982 ) of thebig Porus coins, which are linked to them. By emphasizing the coins apparent wear, heinferred that they must have originated several years before the Babylon hoard closed (in323/2): a date of 32 7 suits this featu re too.

This dating of the big coins is paradoxical because they show Victory crowningAlexander and a clear encounter with a warrior who must be Porus. In 327, there hadbeen no victory and no Porus. As the argumen t from wear has been dropped, nothing nowrequires this date to be co nsidered. The m eaning of the sm aller, related coins is also opento argument. As their types are uniq ue, they m ight, therefore, dep art from the pattern ofcoinages which we know elsewhere: why could not the bowman and elephant evokehazards, or wonders, confronted in India (as already at Gaugamela) and be issued forMacedonians in Alexanders own arm y during or after the campaign? They d o not haveto be issued before the Hydaspes battle showed up the w eaknesses of bow men, chariotsand .elephants. Price and others have no t remarked that Indian archers, chariots andelephants continued to trouble (and accomp any) Alexander on his way down the Indus.An Indian archer nearly killed him at the town of Malloi; Musicanus and Sambus hadelephants and Oxican us maintained elephants but lost them to Alexander; the Oxydracaeeven gave him 500 Indian war-chariots which h e took with him in 326.79 Indian warriorson the coinage were not necessarily a symbol of concord or a mark of respect for thearmy s Indian recruits. Th ey evoked the Macedonians most exotic victories. In 324/3 , on76 Plut., Alex. 28.3; Mor. 180E (a leg wound) 341B (an ankle wound among the Assacenians). Arr.4.23.3 specifies a chest-wound there, showing that Mor. 180E and 341B reflect a small slip (ofmemory?) by Plut.77 Phylarchus, ap . Ath. 6.251C and Satyrus, ap. Ath. 6.251A; Badian, (n . 14) 64 tries nonetheless

to separate Alexs remark from Dioxippuss, claiming that i t was altered precisely to acquitAlexander of the charge that he believed in his own divinity!7R Price (n . 2) (1982) 79-82.79 Arr. 6.10.1 (archers); 6.15.4-6, 16.4, 17.3 (elephants in 325 BC): 5.24.5 and 6.14.3 (chariots,3261.5).


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE I03the tomb proposed for Hephaestion, Macedonian arms were to be shown separately fromPersian arms, but only so as to emphasize the Macedonians superiority.80 If there is ahint of Alexanders concord in the coinage, i t is better sought in the long-known doubledarics, struck to the old Persian royal type but enlarged to a new weight.81

Inferences from the coins alone are not exact, and so Price and others have turned tosurviving texts, trying to be more specific. Of course a coincidence of text and coin isgratifying, but i t has to be specific in order to carry weight. The odds, however, areheavily against its presence. The texts which survive are incomplete witnesses and theiroverlap with any surviving issue of coin would be a considerable matter of chance. Pricehas proposed, nonetheless, one highly attractive connection. In early 324, according toPlutarch, Alexander gave the coin to the women of Persis which the previous kings hadmade customary: whenever they came to Persis, they gave each woman a gold piece. Latein Alexanders reign, an eastern mint began to strike gold darics, the traditional coinage ofPersian kings. Are they not the traditional coin which Alexander would have distributedto the Persian women?82The connection is attractive but not certain, and even so , it neednot account for th e entire purpose of the Alexander darics.Can a similar text throw light on the origin of the Porus coinage? Several have beenproposed, and the most specific case has been developed by W. Hollstein, following anote to M. J. Prices article of 1982.83 When Alexander approached Taxila in 327, itsIndian ruler Omphi (later to be known as Taxiles) greeted him with a wide array ofpresents. In Curtius (but not Arrian) they included 80 talents of argentum signatum. Thephrase certainly means coinage, not ingots or bullion, as a passage in Plinys NaturalHistory proves.84 Hollstein suggests that Omphi was bringing both the big Porus coinsand the smaller bowman-and-elephant coins which he had struck for Alexanders sake.

This suggestion is not compelling. The big Porus coins show an idealized encounterbetween Alexander and Porus on an elephant and also celebrate victory: when Alexandermet Omphi, this encounter was still in the future. The Porus coins and the bowman-and-elephant coins are linked by Greek lettering, yet Omphi was an Indian who is mostunlikely to have had a Greek designer. Price suggests that we should think of theargentum signatum as punchmarked coins, attested in India before Alexander.8sAlternatively, we might think of the Indian chariot-and-elephant coins, revealed by thenew Babylon hoard. Their types are not obviously of Greek design and have no Greeklettering, but once we drop Prices notion that these coins, too, must have originatedbefore the Hydaspes battle had exposed these weapons weaknesses, we have no reasonto fix them to this particular mention of coinage at Taxila.

The other side of the exchange with Omphi has also attracted comment. Accoi-ding toCurtius, Alexander gave him 1000 talents from the booty he was carrying: these talentscould have been bullion,darics or anything, but Plutarch refers to this huge gift asv&zo,a.86The gift of 1000 talents to an Indian was certainly notorious, because thetexts describe how Macedonians protested at it . However, Plutarch was writing centuriesafter the event and its original source, and his use of the word coin is probably loose;8n D.S. 7.1 15.4.x 2 Price, Coinage ... 1.452 n. 7, with Plut. Alex. 69.1-2 and Ctesias, ap. Plut. Mor. 240 A-B forCyruss institution.83 Hollstein (n . 4) 8-1 1; Price (n . 2) (1982) 84.84 Q.C. 8.12.15-16; Pliny, N.H. 33.42-46.x5 Price, Coinage .... 1.452 n. 9.R 6 Q.C. 8.12.16;Plut.Alex.59.5.

A . R. Bellinger (n . 30) 66-68; 72.


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104 BICS-41- 996Curtiuss mention of the booty which he was carrying is more specific and possiblynearer to his source: perhaps that source also knew what really happened. In this case, oneword in Plutarch does not help to fix a coinages origin. The Greek lettering A B and Z onthis issue is also inexplicable in India and even more problematic because it recurs on thcbig Porus coins at least a year later.

Abandoning the texts about Omphi, we should return to the Porus coins themselves.We need a historical context for two issues, linked by Greek lettering, one of which isfixed by its victory-type to a date in or after 326. Numismatists now accept that the bigcoins are poorly struck, in comparison with the fine Alexander decadrachms which wereissued at a major mint in the East during the final years of his life. They were probablynot part of a small issue. The seven examples now known have revealed the use of fiveseparate dies for the reverses, suggesting that they belong to a very considerableFive-shekel pieces are coins struck to a high value. Between late 326 and 323, therefore,we also need an occasion when an issue of high value was required. On grounds ofquality the issue ought to be a separate one from the big issues struck in Alexanders ownname at a major eastern mint which was probably Babylon. Nonetheless, the coin-typeswere designed by a Greek artist who was well informed about Indians and elephants andno doubt the types were meant to be to Alexanders liking.In a recent study, M. C. J. Miller has reasoned from the horse on one side of the coinand connected the issue with a newly-founded city.88 The image, he observes, showsAlexander on Bucephalas, the famous horse who died at the Hydaspes: might not thecoin-issue commemorate him? A city, Bucephala, was founded in his honour and Millersuggests a settlement of veterans and mercenaries, needing to be paid of f thedecadrachm, therefore, depicts the last charge of Alexanders steed and was minted tocommemorate the death of his beloved friend and the foundation of the city.s9 There isalso a text (which he does not cite) which might bear more interestingly on thissuggestion. Curtius tells us that after founding Bucephala and Nicaea on either bank ofthe Hydaspes river, Alexander gave,the leaders of his forces crowns and 1000 goldpieces each: honour was paid to the others, too, according to the degree or rank whichthey held in his friendship, or for work which they had accornpli~hed.~~f there was evera pay-out to mark Bucephala, it was this one, not an unattested gift to veterans andmercenaries: might our coins be part of this honour, offered to the others in silver, notgold, to reflect their lower status? The idea is not unattractive, but Curtius does notactually specify silver coins: lesser friends may merely have received fewer gold pieces(darics or Indian booty?). Curtiuss text is thus not explicit, but i t is a better context thanMillers suggestion. Bucephalas surely did not inspire the issue: the horse is only onefigure among several on one side of the coinage; some authors said that Bucephalas diedearlier in the battle, before the duel with Porus91 (though the artist could be inventinghere, too): Bucephala is not known to have included warriors who were paid offAlexander founded many cities, in some of which mercenaries were settled, but none ofthem can be linked to any issue of coin. The Curtius passage is tempting, but i t does notsay that anything new was struck for the donation. Otherwise, the Bucephala theory isunconvincing.87 Stewart (n.5 5 ) 201 n. 35, with bibliography.x8 Miller (n . 58) 109-20.x9 Q.C. 9.1.6.Arr . 5.14.4: contrast 5.19.5 an d Plut. Alex. 61.1H) Price (n . 2) (1982) 84.9 I Arr. 5.14.4.


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R. J . LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE 105Nonetheless an origin in India in or after 326 might seem the natural supposition. Ithas, however, been rejected on technical grounds of the bigger coins fabric; it isunsupported by any text about new coinage (instead of gifts) and i t confronts thenotorious problem that we have no evidence that any new coins were struck forAlexander at any mint in India itself. Leaving India, therefore, previous numismatists had

already looked back to Susa in 324 as a likely context. Alexander returned to the formerPersian palace, paid off his soldiers debts (at a cost, i t was said of 20,000 talents) andcelebrated the weddings of Macedonians and Iranians with further gifts (up to 10,000talents) and a tent whose splendours are preserved for us in the words of Chares, hisMaster of Ceremonies. These payments were part of a pattern of extravagance whichlasted until 323 and whose variously reported figures have caused F. de Callatay tocompare their cost with the entire sum of silver bullion brought from the New World intoSpain throughout the sixteenth century.92 The Porus coins have often been seen asmedallions, struck to commemorate a royal occasion, perhaps the wedding at Susa. Nowthat we know they are coins, they need only belong in the greatest distribution of coinknown in all Greek history. It was well able to account for any number of five and, twoshekel pieces which, in turn, must have coloured contemporary impressions of this yearof royal bonanzas.It needs emphasizing that the types of Indian warriors and victory fi t into this phase asneatly as in India itself. Shortly before reaching Susa, so the eye witness Aristobulus tellsus, Alexander stopped in Carmania and paid thank offerings for victory in India and onbehalf of his army saved from G e d r ~ s i a . ~ ~ach of these thanks left a large failureunsaid: from Carmania, Alexander then marched straight on to Susa, the journey whichromancers soon connected with the theme of a Dionysian triumph in honour of the Indiancampaign.94The romancers exaggerated, but Indian coin-types were certainly appropriateto his general publicity at this stage of his career.Perhaps historians should not be more specific, but a detail on the coins invites a closerlook. The two types are linked by the lettering A B and E which earlier scholarshipconnected with Alexandros Basileus or with a place name (Babylon, perhaps, if thelettering is read i n reverse, or even Baktra, as Miller has now suggested, on weake ~ i d e n c e ) . ~ ~rice has justly criticized each of these interpretations and Bernard hasfurther observed that AB occurs at a wide range of eastern mints on Seleucid coinage ofthe third century.96He therefore declines to pursue its meaning any further. The presence,however, of Z on one side and AB on another is unique; practice in Alexanders reignneed not conform to mint-practice in the third century. In 1982, Price already proposedthat the letters ought to refer to persons connected with the issue: in Alexanders reignand its aftermath, can we cite examples?In Cilicia, we have coins with the name or symbol of the satrap Balakros, since theearly 320s; in Prices view, we have the enigmatic Mazaces in Aramaic in Mesopotamia;we have Aspeisas at Susa, c. 316; we also have Nicocles of Paphos, probably afterAlexanders death, whose name appears almost surreptitiously on the obverse, notreverse, of his coinage.9792 F. de Callatay, Les TrCsors Royaux AchCmenides et les A4onnayages dAlexandre, REA 91(1989) 259-74, at 262; Arr . 7.4.8-7.5; Chares 125 F4; Price, Coinage .... 1.27.93 Arr . 5.28.3.94 Arr . 6.28.2 (only a story);Plut., Alex. 67.95 Miller (n. 58) 115-17.96 Price (n. 2) (1982) 83-84; Bernard (n. 3) 91; Miller (n. 58) 115-16.97 Price, Coinage .... 1.34.


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I06 BICS-41- 996Among the previous coinage of Philip 11, abbreviated references to individuals is alsoaccepted.98What about AB and Z?In Alexanders lifetime, we have on the reverse of coins which were probably struck atAbydos, but there is no accompanying AB.99 We have ABs from various mints in thethird century, but in Alexanders lifetime the only candidates are coins struck at Susa with

AB in monogram on their reverse.loOWe also have Z at Susa, never with AB, but onother reverses, struck c. 320-316 BC.Iol Believing that these marks might refer toindividuals in the years of Alexanders reign, Price remarked brilliantly in 1982 on theclaims of Abulites and Xenophilus, attested as the satrap and the garrison-commander atSusa under Alexander. o2He has not developed this neat conjecture and in 1985, Hollstein simply rejected it asinadmissible because Abulites did not govern obediently in the Macedonians interestsduring Alexanders absence and Xenophi1us;as a garrison-commander, is not known tohave had authority over any treasure. o3 Interestingly, each of these objections missesfurther evidence which refutes i t and strengthens Prices tentative suggestion. Accordingto Curtius 5.2.16-17, Xenophilus held a cura arcis at Susa already in late 331.Xenophilus certainly took over the job i n Susa: he was firmly in post under theSuccessors and in Diodorus 19, we meet him repeatedly as master of the monies in Susaor guardian of the treasure, to whom officers had to apply if they wanted sums to bereleased for payments at their discretion.lW Although the Alexander-historians mightseem to imply that the Persian treasures in Susa had all been convoyed to Ecbatana afterAlexanders initial conquest, the implication is plainly wrong. In 317/6 at Susa, we aretold of 15,000 talents of art-works and 5,000 talents of crowns, gifts and spoils underXenophiluss supervision. o5 Plainly, the cura arcis involved a cura thesauri (Diodoruscalls Xenophilus the ~ 9 r p m p o q 6 A c x ~ ; ~ ~ ~urtius says that Xenophilus served in Susaunder Alexander; Arrians silence on a named appointment is no obstacle; Xenophilusserved in Alexanders later years and survived into the next decade. As the X on a coinfrom Susa, struck between 326 and 324/3, he would (despite Hollstein) be the idealcandidate. Further Xs occur on the reverse of Susa coins, struck c. 320-316, and here,too Xenophilus was still in post to account for them. Thereafter, they disappear.As for AB, Prices masterly catalogue of 1991 shows it nowhere other than Susaduring Alexanders lifetime.Io7 We have to be careful because AB and Z were not theonly letters on Susa coins during this period,I0*but nowhere else do we find them at oneand the same mint. So far from being disobedient, we have evidence for Abulites inexactly the opposite style, ignored, however, by Hollstein. At Plutarch, Alex. 68.7, wefind Abulites as satrap of Susa, confronting Alexander on his return in 324. The meeting,we infer from other sources, took place at the Kara Su river outside the old city: Abuliteshad prepared none of the necessary supplies, but merely brought 3,000 talents of coin toy 8 Price, Coinage .... 1.370 (Balakros): 452 (Mazaces): 455-56 (Aspeisas);388 (Nicocles).w Price, Coinage .... 1.226 nos. 1497-99; 1502.O0 Price, Coinage .... 1.485nos. 3836-40.lo1 Price, Coinage . .. 1.486-7: P216-P220.Price (n . 2) (1982) 83-84: one might toy with the idea ...Hollstein (n. 4) 8 n. 2D.D.S. 19.17.3; 18.1 with 19.15.5.

D.S. 19.18.1.Price, Coinage .... 2.572.Price, Coinage .... 1.485-6: no known individual suits the AA for c. 320-316 BC.

(I5 D.S. 19.48.6-7.


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R. J. LANE FOX: TEXT AND IMAGE I07him. A lexander ord ered the silver to be thrown to the horses. When they did not taste it,he said, Sowhat use to us is you r preparation? And h e arrested Abulites.Th is anec dote has been aptly cited by numismatists as evidence that satraps had acces sto coin u nder A lexander. In the context of po ssible mints in the east, Price has also cited itand h as recently emp hasized the quantity of coin s required for the 3,000 talents and thelikelihood, therefore, that Abulites struck some of them freshly for his purpose.109Plutarch implies that the coins were silver (&p&ov), not gold: unlike his mention ofcoin in 327, the mention of coins here must be precise. The story requires it, becauseAlexand er would hardly throw bars of bullion to his horses.Price considered his proposal of Abulites and Xenophilus to be highly speculative.Bernard rejected it, withou t emp hasizing that Z and AB do not occur together on any latercoins and that the names of individuals do occur on issues under Alexander; Hollsteinrejected it too, missing the texts which Price did not cite but which revealed Xenophilusas keeper of Susas treasures and Abulites as satrap with a huge issue of coins in 324. CanPlutarchs story help us to fix the origin of the two types, the Porus coins and the relatedbowm an-and -elephant pieces? Th e risks of explaining the coinages by this text are not therisks of explainin g it by Curtiuss or Plutarchs reference to the gifts exchang ed at Taxilain 327. Th ere, the texts were imp recise and their date did not fit the big coin s image ry.Here, the text fits observed facts about the coins themselves: their lettering (attestednowh ere else in comb ination in Alexanders lifetime, but ex plicable by the two Susaofficers names and attested separately on reverses at Susa during their years in power):imagery of Indian victory (apt after summer 326, and especially apt in 324, as Arrianshow s); the likelihood that the coins were not struck a t a major mint because their qualityis lower than the main Alexander decadrachms; the expert consensus that their strikingwas poorly executed an d that the big coins were struck from several dies, probably for anissue of so me size (Price has independently calculated the large number of coin s neededfor Abulitess 3,000 talents, but without considering the striking of big decadrachms as apossibility.)Independently, Andrew Stewart has now suggested the relevance of Plutarchsanec dot e, but not all his proposals would be m ine.1 If the 3,00 0 talents are an accuratetotal, they cannot all have been newly struck for this sudden meeting with Alexander:well over a million coins would have been needed in the five and two sh ekel sizes. In 3 30BC , a hug e cache of gold darics had been captured at Susa:I1I som e of them co uld havemade up the bulk of Abu litess offering. Th e coin-types are most unlikely to have beenSusas unprompted idea, a desperate plea f or surviv al, as Stew art suggests. Theiraccurate rende ring of Indian details, including elephants, and the pose of Alexa nder musthave been cut to an approved design, the work of a Greek who had served in India andknew the tenor of Alexan ders publicity. Perhap s such a design had been sent back fromIndia to Susa in or after 326, but Abulites had done nothing more to execute it ;alternatively it could have been sent ahead from Carmania in 324, and Abulites couldhave brought the first striking as part of his peace-offcring. The smaller bowman-and-elephant coins may have been part of this same offering, hastily struck with the issuersletter mark s on different sides of the coin. Alternatively, these smaller coins may have

Price, Coinage .... 1.26 and 456-7 with nn. 24-25.Stewart (n . 55) 203-06, suggesting, however, that the Susa officials pioneered the design, as ifthe implication would have been clear: Alexanders role as Zeus on earth could still leave room forlesser men, in Persia as in India and as a desperate plea fo r survival i t failed. But this implicationis not clear at all, and the design is hardly Abulitess own, let alone a p lea.D.S. 17.66.2; Plut.Alex. 36.


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108 BICS-41- 996been m inted earlier, in 32615 perhap s, for despa tch from Susa to India112 whereAlexander was still to use and encounter Indian archers and war-chariots. They mighthave been part of a donative, perhaps a back-up to the very one in Curtius for 32615.This general context cannot be made exact, but Plutarchs anecdote is attractiveevidence for the coinages origin. It was a coinage struck at Susa commissioned byAlexanders staff; it was not an issue devised as a p lea for survival by an unruly satrap.In Plutarch, we glimpse its existence, but not its initiation. I hope to have established thatthe Porus types were not struck in 327; they were not com mem orative medallions; theywere not unambiguous statements of A lexanders divinity; I also hope to have refuted thetextual contexts for their issue, aired since 1982: 32716 (Price and Hollstein); 326(Miller, to com memorate Bu cepha las); 3 1716 (Bernard, for E udam us). An overlapbetween a text and a coin-issue is a rare coincidence and except for the total lack ofevidence for any new m inting in India, we might wish to think of an issue for one or otherdonative to troops there, on the model of Curtiuss random reference at 9.1.6. The coinslettering, however, would still need to be explained. In 1982, Price mentioned Abulitesand Xenophilus as a possible answer but did not cite the texts which do most tostrengthen his guess. Rejections of his view have not considered them, either, or havemerely referred to the lettering on much later coins. Texts, facts about the coins and theirfabric and a neat explanation of their lettering converge on the satrap and his treasurer.They suggest that the Porus coins were struck at Susa, not to pay debts or dowries, andthat they existed there early in 324. Perhaps future examples should also be tested forhoofprints.

New College, Oxford

112 D.S. 17.95.4 for goods (including many precious suits of armour) despatched to Alex. in Indiafrom his Western conquests.

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