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Horns of Alexander

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Horned bust of Alexander from Cyprus (left); horned coin portrait of Alexander (right)

The Horns of Alexander represent an artistic tradition that depicted Alexander the Great with two horns on his head, a form of expression that was associated originally as the Horns of Ammon. Alexander's horns came with connotations of political and/or religious legitimacy, including indications of his status as a god, and these representations of Alexander under his successors carried implications of their divine lineage or succession from his reign. Mediums of expression of the horns of Alexander included coinage, sculpture, medallions, textiles, and literary texts, such as in the tradition of the Alexander Romance literature. Rarely was anyone other than Alexander depicted with the two horns as this was considered unique to his imagery.

Classical antiquity

According to legend, Alexander went on pilgrimage to the Siwa Oasis, the sanctuary of the Greco-Egyptian deity Zeus Ammon in 331 BC. There, he was pronounced by the Oracle to be the son of Zeus Ammon, allowing him to therefore have the Horns of Ammon, which themselves followed from Egyptian iconography of Ammon as a ram-headed god or, in his Greek-form, a man with ram horns. The complete imagery may have represented a hybrid depiction that combined the naturalistic face of Zeus' portraiture with Ammon's horns depicting the Egyptian deity in order to signify the emergence of a new political system that encompassed the world, across regions such as Greece, Egypt, Asia, and so forth. Depictions of Alexander with the rams two horns appear under his successors, although there is not yet evidence of such depictions during his own lifetime. Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt and more prominently the king of Thrace Lysimachus were the earliest produce coinage of Alexander with the rams horns. This continued under Arsinoe II from 275 to 268 BC. It was not for another two centuries that this practice was revived by Mithridates VI Eupator in the 1st century BC, after which numismatic representations of a two-horned Alexander ceased. Representations would continue in the form of literature, sculptures, and other artistic expressions continued.

A life-sized marble head of Alexander with Ammon's ram horns is known from the second half of the second century and is stored at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. The popular practice of representing Alexander with horns among sculptors was described by Clement of Alexandria in the third century AD, who wrote "Alexander wished to be thought the son of Ammon and to be modeled with horns (κερασφόρος) by sculptors, so eager was he to outrage the beautiful face of a man by a horn." Roughly in the same period, the grammarian Athenaeus of Naukratis reported that one of Alexander's contemporaries, Ephippus of Olynthus, stated that "Alexander used to wear even the sacred vestments at his entertainments; and sometimes he would wear the purple robe, and cloven sandals, and horns of Ammon, as if he had been the god."

In April 2024, the discovery of a bronze fitting depicting a two-horned Alexander with wavy hair was announced, discovered in Zealand, an island of Denmark. The artifact is dated to ~200 AD during the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an emperor that believed himself to be the reincarnated Alexander.

Late antiquity

Visual arts

Artworks in late antiquity commonly depicted Alexander with horns. Examples of these are found in a gold penchant stored at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore in addition to a cameo at the British Museum in London that has been dated to between the fourth to seventh centuries. In addition, a sculpture depicting a two-horned Alexander has been discovered at a transept basilica at the site of Katalymata ton Plakoton on Cyprus from the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius during the seventh century.

Literature

Alexander Romances

In the α recension of the Alexander Romance, Alexander's father is an Egyptian priest named Nechtanebus who sports a set of ram horns. After his death, Alexander is described as "the horned king" (βασιλέα κερασφόρον) by an oracle instructing Ptolemy, a general of Alexander, on where to bury him. This statement was repeated in the Armenian recension of the Alexander Romance in the 5th century as well as in the seventh-century Syriac Pseudo-Callisthenes.

Syriac Alexander Legend

At some point in late antiquity, Alexander the Great would come to be depicted as a Christian. This is figured prominently in the Syriac Alexander Legend. The horns of Alexander are referenced twice in this text. The first appears in a prayer on Alexander's part;

King Alexander bowed, and worshipping said: “Oh God, master of kings and judges, you who raise up kings and dismiss their power, I perceive with my mind that you made me great among all kings, and that you caused horns to grow on my head, so that I may gore with them the kingdoms of the world. Give me the power from the heavens of your sanctity so that I may receive strength greater than the kingdoms of the world, and I will humiliate them and glorify your name forever, oh Lord!

The second reference occurs later, as God speaks to Alexander and tells him that he gave him two horns to use them as a weapon against other worldly kingdoms;

I made you great among all kings, and I caused horns of iron to grow on your head, so that you may gore with them the kingdoms of the world.

The two-horned imagery of the Syriac Alexander Legend draws together elements from the Peshitta of 1 Kings 22:11/2 Chronicles 18:10, Micah 4:13, and the two-horned ram in Daniel 8.

Quran

In Surah Al-Kahf (18) in the Quran, a figure by the name of Dhu al-Qarnayn appears, which literally means "The Two Horned One". Islamic commentators most commonly associated Dhu al-Qarnayn with Alexander the Great. Second most frequently tied to Dhu al-Qarnayn was a figure named Sa'b Dhu Marathid, a fictional Himyarite king whose biography was also derivative from that of Alexander's. Contemporary scholars also view Dhu al-Qarnayn as Alexander the Great. The choice of name for Alexander as the Two Horned One draws on motifs depicting Alexander as being two-horned in late antiquity.

Medieval Islam

In the medieval Islamic period and in light of the widely held understanding that the Quran was depicting Alexander as being two-horned, Alexander would widely be referred to as the "Two-Horned One" and his name often merged with that phrase. In Arabic-language Alexander traditions, Alexander was variously called "Dhu l-Qarnayn", "al-Iskandar Dhūl-qarnayn", or sometimes just "Dhūlqarnayn". One example is the ninth-century Hispano-Arabic legend known as the Qissat Dhulqarnayn, meaning "Story of the Two-Horned One", whom it identifies as Alexander. Another Qissat Dhulqarnayn was produced in the eleventh century within the Ara'is al-majalis fi Qisas al-anbiya' (Book of Prophets) of al-Tha'labi (d. 1036). The Hadīth Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn, also known as the Leyenda de Alejandro, is a 15th-century Hispano-Arabic legend which also identifies Dhu al-Qarnayn with Alexander and refers to him by that name.

Ethiopia

The reference to the horns of Alexander are also found in the Ethiopic Alexander Romance.

See also

References

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  2. "Marble head of Zeus Ammon | Roman | Imperial". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
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