Alexander on horseback

[Alexias]

This bronze from Herculaneum is mostly original (see here https://www.getty.edu/publications/arti ... nty%2Dfive) and dates from the first century BC. It is believed to possibly be a copy of part of the bronze group Alexander commissioned to commemorate the fallen Companions at the Granicus, though it is not certain the horse and rider actually go together.

If this is a copy of the Lysippus group, could it actually be a portrait of Alexander?

20240901_125105 - Copy.jpg (249.31 KiB) Viewed 10177 times

[hiphys]

As far as I know, the major objection to the identification of the horseman with Alexander is this: why Lysippus placed Alexander among the twenty five statues of his Companions, if they were all dead and only Alexander was still alive? Therefore we have two possibilities:1) this group represents Alexander on horseback, but it isn't a part of the Lysippean 'turma' that Alexander dedicated in Dion, after the Granikos victory; 2) this group represents one of Alexander's Companions who fell during the Granicos' battle and was forged by Lysippus. But I think that Lysippus perhaps completed the 'turma' only after Alexander's death, and therefore he put rightly the king among his Companions, and nobody found fault with it.

[Alexias]

Thanks for that. I wasn't aware there was any doubt about it being Alexander, but perhaps it had nothing to do with the Granicus group. These would have been much lager (life-size?), so if it is based on that group, it is a considerable reduction in size. Perhaps it is an original, posthumous piece of work?

[hiphys]

According to F. Coarelli, ( 'Lisippo e la <turma> di Alessandro', in Alessandro Magno e l'Oriente, Milano 2023, Edizioni Electa per MANN. pp.95-99) there is no doubt till now that the little group was a replica (very smaller) of one of the horsemen Lysippus made in Dion for Alexander. And even this paper (the last I read on this argument) identifies the horseman with Alexander. I don't remember where I read the rudder under the horse is a hint for identification of this little group with the original Lysippus made after the Granicus battle. I don't know why, perhaps because the Granicus battle was won immediately after the landing in Asia of Alexander and his army.

[marcus]

Just to be contrarian ... is there any reason why it might not be a copy of Alexander from the hunting group dedicated by Craterus at Delphi (Plutarch, Alexander 40.1-4)?