Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great by Elizabeth Carney

Author:Elizabeth Carney [ELIZABETH CARNEY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: history, Ancient, General, Greece, Religion, Antiquities & Archaeology
ISBN: 9781134318186
Google: xxmAAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-09-27T00:03:43.754523+00:00

Figure 6.1 Vienna Cameo

Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The iconography of a couple in superimposed profiles first appeared on Ptolemaic coins, initially those relating to deification of a royal pair,53 although later examples might also be taken to refer to co-rule, since later Ptolemaic women did co-rule. Most of the paired Ptolemaic coin images preserved detailed, individualized heads and most of the pairs commemorated were royal spouses. Cameos from the early Roman Empire period copy the idea of these superimposed profiles, but the faces on the cameos, especially those of the women, are more idealized, divinized to some degree, and, if identifications are correct, often represent non-marital pairs, like a mother and son. If we recognize Alexander and Olympias in the Vienna and/or St Petersburg cameos, then we have representation of them that implies the divinity of both and divorces them from Philip. Granted the stories that claimed the first Ptolemy was, in fact, Philip’s bastard,54 such a Philipless construct better fits the early Imperial period than the Ptolemaic. If this later dating is correct, then the image on the cameos has been filtered through the culture and classicizing modes of the early Roman Imperial period.

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