Ptolemy had broken the trend of depicting gods only when he placed the recently dead Alexander on the obverse of his coins. His next ground-breaking move was to replace Alexander’s portrait with his own. There is little evidence to provide a date for Ptolemy’s introduction of these innovative coins, so scholars suggest that the issue of Ptolemy’s portrait coins was associated with his taking of the title of king ca. 305 BCE along with the other Diadochi.
The rulers of Egypt had customarily been associated with the divine, but Ptolemy’s decision to put his own portrait on his coins was still a significant one. We have no indication whether some kind of taboo excluded mortals on coins, or if it was merely just an idea that hadn’t been considered yet. Ptolemy’s decision was at the very least innovative, if not downright audacious. Demetrius Poliorcetes, Antiogonus Monopthalmus’ son, was the first to follow Ptolemy’s example – Demetrius even depicted himself with the horns of a bull reminiscent of Alexander’s ram-horned portrait – perhaps as early as ca. 301 or maybe a little after 294 when he won control of Macedonia. The reluctance of the rest of the Diadochi to follow Ptolemy’s precedent, except for the young and flamboyant Demetrius, indicates a certain radicalness in Ptolemy’s decision. Lysimachus and Seleucus instead opted to issue Alexander’s coinage with their names on the reverse, and to continue using those images of the gods traditionally depicted on coinage. The next generations of rulers did not immediately follow in placing their own portraits on their coinage, instead depicting the gods or using coinage with the portrait of their predecessor.
The image of Alexander on Ptolemy’s earlier coins had been that of a highly idealised youth after the manner of attractive beardless divine youths such as Apollo or Heracles. The first portrait of a living ruler, however, had no such generalized beauty. Ptolemy’s portrait is a collection of misshapen features that is not particularly pleasant to look at, and one wonders what motivated him to employ such unpleasant realism when placing a living portrait, which also happened to be his own, on coinage for the first time. Maybe he wished to differentiate himself from the young and attractive but dead and gone Alexander, disseminating his own image throughout the kingdom that was now his and his alone. Whatever his reason, it set the standard for realistic portraiture on Hellenistic coinage. From coins we know that the Ptolemies all retained a strong family resemblance, ensured by their in-breeding, right down until Cleopatra VII. It is easy for us to forget that in times without photography people did not know the face of their leader unless they had seen him themselves. Sculptures and paintings had been used to disseminate a ruler’s image, and now coinage became the simplest and most effective method to do this, not just at home but abroad also.
On the reverse of his coins Ptolemy used the eagle clutching a fulmen (thunderbolt) that he had added alongside Athena on the reverse of his Alexander coins. It became his personal symbol and was adopted by later Ptolemies on their own coinage. The eagle is rendered with an impressive level of detail, especially in the texture of its feathers. Combined with the detail and realism of the portrait on the obverse, this coin is a fine example of the significance of ancient coins as pieces of art.
