Helmet with horns

[akop]

Hi,
I’m pleased to find such an excellent forum. Many thanks to those folks who started it!
I’m deeply interested in Alexander but I guess it’s too early for me to say that I know much about him.

My first question would be about his helmet, the one with horns. Well, I’ve searched the board for this topic and found some posts but they didn’t resolve my doubts. Some points I have collected are: 1) he probably didn’t wear it very often 2) there was the other one with lion head (maybe he had more helmets) 3) wearing of this particularly helmet could be connected to his visit of the oracle of Ammon Zeus in Siwah.

But these horns do concern me. Firstly there is a good deal of records in Quran about someone named Dhul-Qarnayn or Zul-Qarnain. It seems that Muslims as well as modern historians do agree that this person could be identified with Alexander the Great. The name itself means “two horned one”. In Michael Woods film “In the footsteps of Alexander the great”, during Woods contacts with locals the horns are almost always mentioned: in the legends of the East Alexander is two horned beast.

Well, certainly there was something with these horns, something to stir up people’s minds for millennia to come. According to Woods documentary, even today, in some places Alexander is depicted with horns on his head.

So here is my question: what was the main reason for horns to be associated with Alexander, his double-horned helmet or his reputation of being the son of double horned Ammon-Zeus?

[akop]

Does anybody have some ifo about this helmet: http://content.foto.mail.ru/mail/govs.7 ... i-2206.jpg?
I couldn't find any father reference to it. Also nothing on the website of Russian Hermitage where it is supposedly located. The author of the page where the photo resides maintains that this helmet belongs to Alexander.

[Taphoi]

So here is my question: what was the main reason for horns to be associated with Alexander, his double-horned helmet or his reputation of being the son of double horned Ammon-Zeus?

The evidence for Alexander having worn a horned helmet is tenuous and would mainly comprise this coin issued by Seleucus Nicator after his death:



It shows a head in profile wearing a panther-skin helmet with bull's ears and horns. The problem is that the weight of numismatic opinion believes that it is Seleucus himself, although a significant minority thinks it's Alexander.

Conversely, the evidence that Alexander wore the ram's horns of the god Ammon is strong, but not on a helmet. Notably, Athenaeus mentions that he wore them as fancy dress at a party. There are also coins issued first by Ptolemy:



This is in the context of Alexander wearing the elephant scalp headdress, but the horns sneak out from under the headdress, just above the ears.

Secondly, there are the coins of Lysimachus first issued twenty years later in 298BC, in which Alexander wears the horns and the ribbon known as the diadem, which was the symbol of monarchy (a sort of "crown"):



So the answer is that Alexander associated the horns of Ammon with himself due to the priest at Siwa having addressed him with the correct pharaonic title, which included "Son of Ammon-Re". Then his followers (former Bodyguards) Ptolemy and Lysimachus took up the symbolism to convey his divinity after his death.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[akop]

Thank you Taphoi for such detailed comments!
Knowing how intricate the patterns of myth-forming could be I myself was always inclined towards the view that the two horned helmet is rather a legend. Still some things IMHO needs to be clarified.

First of all look at this helmet:



I found it on one Russian blog and the guy who posted the message maintains that this helmet is hosted by Russian Hermitage.

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html

Unfortunately I couldn't find any farther information regarding this particularly helmet as well a I couldn't find it on the Hermitage website. Can you imagine that a ~2300 years old helmet could be saved in a museum in such pristine order?

The second issue is the alleged connection of this helmet to the mythical people of Hyperborea. Some russian historians are convinced that it was made in Hyperborea pointed that only hyperboreans possessed the necessary knowhow. What do you think about that?

In the popular russian comedy "The gentlemen of fortune" a bunch of lousy criminals are hunting for the helmet of Alexander the Great which was lost (according to the scenario) somewhere in the east and discovered later by a group of archeologist. This helmet is made entirely of gold and has nice horns.




Of course this is just a movie. The funny thing is that there is a lion head on it too .

From the movie of Michael Woods it is also clear that somewhere in the local legends two horned helmet is definitely very well preserved.

So what are we going to do with all those legends?

[agesilaos]

The Hermitage helmet looks decidedly Renaissance to me, typical of the styles favoured the nobility (boyars) of the 15th to 17th centuries; that is if it is not a more recent replica. Galling though it is I agree with Taphoi the two horned business will have sprung from the depiction of Alexander on Lysimachos' coins which were very popular currency and remained in production until the advent of Rome on the Black Sea. Lacking the cultural references later Persians may well have taken it as a true likeness.

There is a famous statue of Pyrrhus in a horned helmet but not of Alexander I think. Tetradrachms of Demetrius show him with Bull's horns, depicting the power of Poseidon Seleukos even issued a coin of Boukephalos with horns. The Seleukid issues seem to have been small and thus less likely to have started any mythology.

The story of Alexander dressing up as Ammon comes from a disreputable pamphlet so should be treated with caution.

[akop]

agesilaos, thank you for your reply!

All that has been said by you and Taphoi makes me quite convinced that the horny helmet is most probably a myth. Still..

Well, now I would have to reveal my intentions regarding the helmet: I'm going to use it in my book which I'm writing right now. Alexander is the main hero of the book but all the actions are taking place in locations that are very distant in space and time from the ancient Greece. So the real events of the past and their exact detailing are not of prime importance for me (although I can't afford to treat them frivolously). The important thing is to understand Alexander's character and gain the ability to assume what he might have said or done in certain situations, under certain circumstances.

Hoping that I'm not already considered as a sort of lunatic impudently trying to steal the golden egg (may be it will be helpful to mention here that I adore Alexander and in my book he is the good guy), I'm going to ask to help me with the reference to a book or any other source of information which is addressing Alexander as a person and creates an adequate personal portrait of him.

I'm not sure whether any references survived about him in a normal life. The questions that bother me are like this:
what would he say or do if for example he accidentally dropped something heavy on his foot or cut his finger with a knife? Or what was his preferred food provided there is a choice? Or what would he say if presented with a book (as I understand in ancient Greece were only papyri)? and so on.

[Taphoi]

...what was his preferred food provided there is a choice? Or what would he say if presented with a book (as I understand in ancient Greece were only papyri)?

Alexander shared a fondness for grape products with certain members of this site, but Plutarch (Life of Alexander 23.5) wrote that Alexander would distribute the rarest fruit and fish dishes to his companions when they were brought to him from the coast. This was in emulation of Cyrus in Xenophon's Cyropaidia, which Alexander had read.

Alexander's favorite author was Homer and his favorite book was the Iliad. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a literate intellectual, even a bookworm. He asked for books to be sent out to him in the wilds of Asia and he may well have been the inspiration behind Ptolemy's foundation of the library in Alexandria after his death. Aristotle wrote two treatises on Monarchy and Colonies specifically for him. We know he had also read plays by Euripides (the Bacchae, Alcestis, Andromache, Andromeda...) and also Aeschylus and Sophocles. He quotes Xenophon's Anabasis and is also attested to have received copies of works by Philistus, Telestus and Philoxenus.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[agesilaos]

He may have been fond of apples as Plutarch has some sent from the sea to reach him at Marakanda just before the murder of Kleitos.

As to what he would say upon cutting himself etc the only reported saying would be the 'See it is blood not ichor' but originally that was said by Dexippos of Alexander and it did not endear him. He would normally bear pain with a stiff upper lip one suspects and recieve gifts politely from most but with extravagant gratitude from his favourites, I suspect.

[akop]

Alexander's favorite author was Homer and his favorite book was the Iliad.

I guess by the book you mean papyri? Well, I'm just curious how many papyri would it take to record such a bulk writing as Iliad? Was it tightly rolled around some kind of stick? Was the font small? Definitely Alexander couldn't keep it under his pillow as was once mentioned on one forum. May be just a piece of it?

[rocktupac]

Aristotle wrote two treatises on Monarchy and Colonies specifically for him.

How do we know this?

He quotes Xenophon's Anabasis and is also attested to have received copies of works by Philistus, Telestus and Philoxenus.

What are the quotations?

Excuse my ignorance if the answers are obvious. I'm only very curious to find out the answers. Thanks!

[marcus]

What are the quotations?

Excuse my ignorance if the answers are obvious. I'm only very curious to find out the answers. Thanks!

Hi rocktupac,

I'm not sure I can tell you where he actually quotes Xenophon - I can't recall any time when he did so, so Andrew will have to provide the reference for that. Similarly, I know that Aristotle wrote those treatises for Alexander, but I'm not sure where the evidence is (apart from in the entry on Aristotle in the Oxford Classical Dictionary !)

However, the other is easier to sort out:

Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 8.2-3

[2] And since he thought and called the Iliad a viaticum of the military art, he took with him Aristotle's recension of the poem, called the Iliad of the Casket, and always kept it lying with his dagger under his pillow, as Onesicritus informs us; and when he could find no other books in the interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some. [3] So Harpalus sent him the books of Philistus, a great many of the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and the dithyrambic poems of Telestus and Philoxenus.

ATB

[Taphoi]

Aristotle wrote two treatises on Monarchy and Colonies specifically for him.

How do we know this?

He quotes Xenophon's Anabasis and is also attested to have received copies of works by Philistus, Telestus and Philoxenus.

To be honest, I took all my comments from Chapter 2 of Alexander's Lovers by Andrew Chugg, where there is a lot more of this type of information

The reference on Xenopnon's Anabasis is the following citing Alexander before Issus, which must have been derived from reading that work:

He is also said to have reminded them of Xenophon and the I0,000 men who accompanied him, asserting that the latter were in no way comparable with them either in number or in general excellence. Besides, they had had with them neither Thessalian, Boeotian, Peloponnesian, Macedonian, or Thracian horsemen, nor any of the other kinds of cavalry which were in the Macedonian army; nor had they any archers or slingers except a few Cretans and Rhodians, and even these were got ready by Xenophon on the spur of the moment in the very crisis of danger. And yet they put the king and all his forces to rout close to Babylon itself, and succeeded in reaching the Euxine Sea after defeating all the races which lay in their way as they were marching down thither.

My reference on Aristotle's works for Alexander is page 4 of Aristotle by William David Ross, London 1923 (but I used the 1966 edition), which I do not have to hand, but which you can certainly look up in the library. I think this is also on page 80 of The Library of Alexandria editor Roy MacLeod in an article by R G tanner.

I guess by the book you mean papyri? Well, I'm just curious how many papyri would it take to record such a bulk writing as Iliad? Was it tightly rolled around some kind of stick? Was the font small? Definitely Alexander couldn't keep it under his pillow as was once mentioned on one forum. May be just a piece of it?

There were other writing media such as vellum. The scrolls need not have been much more bulky than modern books. The Iliad is only two volumes in the Loeb version.

...for Alexander set out to provide for them on the basis of a renewal of ancient kinship, and also because at the same time he was fond of Homer; at any rate, we are told of a recension of the poetry of Homer, the Recension of the Casket, as it is called, which Alexander, along with Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, perused and to a certain extent annotated, and then deposited in a richly wrought casket, which he had found amongst the Persian treasures.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[marcus]

Hi Andrew,

Good call on Xenophon. Of course, now you mention it I go "Oh, of course", but I hadn't recalled it myself.

My reference on Aristotle's works for Alexander is page 4 of Aristotle by William David Ross, London 1923 (but I used the 1966 edition), which I do not have to hand, but which you can certainly look up in the library. I think this is also on page 80 of The Library of Alexandria editor Roy MacLeod in an article by R G tanner.

Interesting. I think it mentions it in the introduction to the various Penguin editions of Aristotle, too (as well as OCD); but I wouldn't mind finding an explicit reference at some point ...

ATB

[marcus]

I guess by the book you mean papyri? Well, I'm just curious how many papyri would it take to record such a bulk writing as Iliad? Was it tightly rolled around some kind of stick? Was the font small? Definitely Alexander couldn't keep it under his pillow as was once mentioned on one forum. May be just a piece of it?

There were other writing media such as vellum. The scrolls need not have been much more bulky than modern books. The Iliad is only two volumes in the Loeb version.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree, Andrew.

Interesting enough, I was watching the Bettany Hughes programme on Helen of Troy the other day (repeated from years ago) and at one point she is looking at the oldest manuscript of Iliad, pointing out where Helen's name appears. It is clear from this that the papyrus scroll (and it was papyrus in this instance) is quite long, and what one sees represents only one book.

Of course, the general idea of a "book" in classical writing is that which fits on one scroll - so Iliad would have been 24 scrolls. (The codex - i.e. book, essentially - wasn't developed until the 1st century AD.) So yes, the entire Iliad would have been quite bulky (although not necessarily that heavy) - certainly bigger than Loeb ...

ATB

[amyntoros]

My reference on Aristotle's works for Alexander is page 4 of Aristotle by William David Ross, London 1923 (but I used the 1966 edition), which I do not have to hand, but which you can certainly look up in the library. I think this is also on page 80 of The Library of Alexandria editor Roy MacLeod in an article by R G tanner.

Interesting. I think it mentions it in the introduction to the various Penguin editions of Aristotle, too (as well as OCD); but I wouldn't mind finding an explicit reference at some point ...

Plutarch 7.5 has this ...

It would appear, moreover, that Alexander not only received from his master his ethical and political doctrines, but also participated in those secret and more profound teachings which philosophers designate by the special terms "acroamatic" and "epoptic," and do not impart to many. For after he had already crossed into Asia, and when he learned that certain treatises on these recondite matters had been published in books by Aristotle, he wrote him a letter on behalf of philosophy, and put it in plain language.

... and a website based on the Encyclopedia Brittanica which "perhaps" confirms the two political dialogues as genuine - "On Monarchy" and "On Colonies", also says (my italics) ...

It is true that a book of Andronicus, as reported by Aulus Gellius (xx. 5), contained a correspondence between Alexander and Aristotle in which the pupil complained that his master had published his " acroatic discourses " (Tois aKpoartKous TWv X6yow). But ancient letters are proverbially forgeries, and in the three hundred years which elapsed between the supposed correspondence and the time of Andronicus there was plenty of time for the forgery of these letters. But even if the correspondence is genuine, " acroatic discourses " must be taken to mean what Alexander would mean by them in the time of Aristotle, and not what they had come to mean by the time of Andronicus. Alexander meant those discourses which Aristotle, when he was his tutor, intended for the ears of himself and his fellow-pupils; such as the early political works on Monarchy and on Colonies, and the early rhetorical works, the Theodectea, the Collection of Arts, and possibly the Rhetoric to Alexander, in the preface to which the writer actually says to Alexander: " You wrote to me that nobody else should receive this book." These few early works may have been published, and contrary to the wishes of Alexander, without affecting Aristotle's later system. But even so, Alexander's complaint would not justify writers three centuries later in taking Alexander to have referred to mature scientific writings, which were not addressed, and not much known, to him, the conqueror of Asia; although by the times of Andronicus and Aulus Gellius, Aristotle's scientific writings were all called acroatic, or acroamatic, or sometimes esoteric, in distinction from exoteric - a distinction altogether unknown to Aristotle, and therefore to Alexander. In the absence of any contemporary evidence, we cannot believe that Aristotle in his lifetime published any, much less all, of his scientific books. The conclusion then is that Aristotle on the one hand to some extent published his early dialectical and rhetorical writings, because they were popular, though now they are lost, but on the other hand did not publish any of the extant historical and philosophical works which belong to his mature system, because they were best adapted to his philosophical pupils in the Peripatetic school.

It looks then like an interpretation of the evidence in the sources rather than a direct quote, but it is quite persuasive.

Best regards