praised for the way in which, unlike those of Myron and Polyclitus, no one view
predominates; its dynamism has to be appreciated by the viewer taking an all-round
perspective.
Lysippus’ ability and enterprise was rewarded when he became Alexander’s
court favourite. According to Plutarch:
The best likeness of Alexander that has been preserved for us is to be found in
the statues of Lysippus, the only artist whom Alexander considered worthy to
represent him. Alexander possessed a number of individual features, which many
of Lysippus’s followers later tried to reproduce, for example the poise of the neck
which was tilted slightly to the left, or a certain melting look in his eyes, and the
artist has exactly caught these peculiarities.
(Life of Alexander, 4, 1)This Roman copy is one of several that are thought to represent the qualities in
its attitude and gaze that Plutarch attributes to Alexander and that Lysippus had
managed to capture in his portraits. It shows Alexander without a beard, emphasizing
his youthful vigour and in the swept back hair (for which the Greeks had the word,
anastole) parted in the middle, has what Plutarch elsewhere says was Alexander’s
‘manly and leonine quality’. This is evidently the image of himself that Alexander
wished to present to the world, one that is alluded to in subsequent imperial portraits
in the new era of kings and emperors, and it was first established by Lysippus.
One of the great monuments preserved from the ancient world is Hellenistic in
origin, the reconstruction of the Pergamum altar housed in the museum to which it
gave its name in Berlin, where it was brought after it had been excavated by German
archaeologists in the 1870s and 80s. The reconstructed frieze (fig. 68) is on a scale
only matched by the Parthenon frieze in the British museum. Visitors entering for the
first time the gallery in which the reconstruction is magnificently displayed are
transported back into an architectural world that with its Ionic columns and its simple
and severe geometrical symmetry, is thoroughly Greek and will be first impressed by
its monumental grandeur and scale. The altar and the reconstructed Temple of
Athena also in the museum were part of a complex of buildings occupying the raised
acropolis of Pergamum, the capital of one of the Hellenistic kingdoms that had grown
up in Asia Minor after Alexander’s eastern empire had fragmented after his death.
Although much about its origin is unknown, including the name of its main architect
and designer and all the names of its many sculptors and artists except one, it can be
dated to the reign of king Eumenes II (197–158). Perhaps it was initiated after his
victory over the Seleucids and Galati/Celts at the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. It is
sure and certain witness to the thorough Hellenisation of this kingdom ruled by the
Attalid dynasty. The kings, who promoted Athena as patroness of the city, had as
262 THE GREEKS