With Alexander III, the issues of gold coins in Greece grew steadily for several factors, first of all the availability of metal, but also the need for large amounts of money for the maintenance of the army, the payment of the veterans and the establishment of a sovereign state that could have a monopoly on the minting of coins. Recognising the economic and political importance of having a uniform coinage in his empire, during his advance Alexander took over existing mints in the places he conquered and produced a prolific minting, while at other sites new mints were established where none had existed before. The longevity of the Alexandrian coinage was a unique phenomenon in Classical antiquity: in all, about 114 different mints produced Alexander coins over a period of 250 years. This paper is focused on the gold coins issued by Alexander III beetween 336 and 323 BC throughout the empire.

Over three sections, I will discuss key examples of ACANS’ collection in relation to the impact, influence, and legacy of Alexander. I will also point to the key literature on the coins’ interpretation. The aim is to demonstrate how well numismatic evidence complements the syllabus, and how easy it is to introduce to the classroom. First, the famous Heracles/Zeus coins of Alexander will be discussed in terms of their iconography, impact, and legacy. Secondly, the paper will highlight how the Successors adapted Alexander’s iconography and portrait for their own purposes as a demonstration of Alexander’s impact. Finally, the lasting legacy of Alexander will be briefly discussed; the prevalence of portraiture on Hellenistic coins stems directly from Alexander and the patterns he established. For the most part I shall restrict the following to those living within a generation of Alexander. Alexander’s legacy and image have been employed for centuries, and given the focus here on the value of coins for the school syllabus, I do not wish to distract with evidence too far removed from the man himself.

This paper aims to explore the presence of Ptolemaic coins in the new Seleucid province of Coele Syria, especially in the middle of the second century BCE, despite its loss by the kings of Alexandria during the Fifth Syrian War (202–198 BCE). The circulation of these currencies and the emission of the “Uncertain Era” didrachms are linked to Ptolemy VI’s activist policies in the region with regard to both the Maccabees and the Seleucid kingdom itself.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great coinage took on new forms and spread into geographic regions it had not previously reached. Moreover it began to be issued into and used within new political and economic constructs, and it arguably started to reach sectors of the economy for which it had previously been unsuited for use. This paper focuses on these four types of change: form, geographic spread and an attendant shift in scale, systemic change and manipulation, and diversification of use. It offers outlines of the evidence for them as it is exhibited by some of the coinage, and also suggests ways in which numismatists and economic historians of the ancient world have attempted to rationalise or explain them.

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NEMC) has preserved since 2007 a collection of coins that were donated by Emma Jacot to the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria in 1953. The coins represented with the figure of Alexander the Great as a young man with a different hairstyle on the obverse and the Ptolemaic eagle on the reverse; are three examples of this type there are carried with the index numbers (26280, 2628, and 26279), denoting the influence of this leader on the early denomination of bronze coins of Ptolemaic Period. This research aims to study the character of the early Ptolemaic monitoring system and the significance of the depiction of Alexander the Great with the available examples. The results highlighted the Ptolemaic policy of taking advantage of Alexander to reinforce the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt.

Zeitschrift: Schweizerische numismatische Rundschau = Revue suisse de numismatique = Rivista svizzera di numismatica