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| Alexander the Great as Helios.
Roman copy of Greek original |
Veneration of Helios: the image of Alexander
In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod (Theogony 371) and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia (Hesiod) or Euryphaessa (Homeric Hymn) and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek words for sun, moon and dawn.
Helios was imagined as a handsome God crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. Homer described Helios’s chariot as drawn by solar steeds (Iliad xvi.779); later Pindar described it as drawn by “fire-darting steeds” (Olympian Ode 7.71). Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon.
As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus.
Solar Apollo with the radiant halo of Helios in Roman floor mosaic, El Djem, Tunisia, late 2nd century
Gods, Heroes and Divine MenApotheosis (from Greek apotheoun “to deify”, in Latin deificatio, and later in Italian gióvino, “to be made divine”), refers to the exaltation of a subject to divine level. Prior to the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt (pharaohs) and Mesopotamia (since Naram-Sin). From the New Kingdom, all deceased pharaohs were deified as Osiris. In the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon, who was a king, when the Greeks had set kingship aside, and who had extensive economic and military ties, though largely antagonistic, with Achaemenid Persia, where kings were divine. At his wedding to his sixth wife, Philip’s enthroned image was carried in procession among the Olympian gods; “his example at Aigai became a custom, passing to the Macedonian kings who were later worshipped in Greek Asia, from them to Julius Caesar and so to the emperors of Rome”. Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to a status equal to the gods before death (e.g., Alexander the Great) or afterwards (e.g., members of the Ptolemaic dynasty). Heroic cult similar to apotheosis was also an honour given to a few revered artists of the distant past, notably Homer. |
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Gandhara
The primary cities of Gandhara were Purushapura (now Peshawar), Takshashila Southern Afghanistan was absorbed by Demetrius I of Bactria in 180 BCE. Around about 185 BCE, Demetrius invaded and conquered Gandhara and the Punjab. Later, wars between different groups of Bactrian Greeks resulted in the independence of Gandhara from Bactria and the formation of the Indo-Greek kingdom. Menander was its most famous king. He ruled from Taxila and later from Sagala (Sialkot). He rebuilt Taxila (Sirkap) and Pushkalavati. He became a Buddhist and is remembered in Buddhists records due to his discussions with a great Buddhist philosopher, N?gasena, in the book Milinda Around the time of Menander’s death in 140 BCE, the Central Asian Kushans overran Bactria and ended Greek rule there. Around 80 BCE, the Sakas, diverted by their Parthian cousins from Iran, moved into Gandhara and other parts of Pakistan and Western India. |
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Indians in EgyptThere is evidence of Indians in the West as of Greeks and Romans in Indian sailors did not display anything like the same amount of activity as the Graeco-Alexandrian navigators; still, they “occasionally attempted expeditions westward and in the Ptolemaic period they began to focus on the markets at Alexandria. They arrived in some numbers from Potana, the port founded by Alexander on the Indus, to “Arabia Felix” (Aden) and the island of “Dioscurias” (Socotra), and settled there. Aden was “a prosperous and wealthy meeting place of Greeks, Arabians and Indians.” Socotra was “inhabited by a mixed population of Arabs, Indians, and Greeks.” As the trade increased, Indians began to appear in Greek Egypt itself; Indian Buddhists lived and died in some numbers in Alexandria and presumably practiced their religion there. There is no way to estimate the numbers of Indians in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period, but there is evidence of actual Indian communities there at a later period. Dio Chrysostum, in the second century CE, reminds the Alexandrians that there are “Indians who view the spectacles with you and are with you on all occasions” (Or. OOCII.373). Ptolemy also notes the presence of Indians in Alexandria (As. Res. IIL53). Bactrians and Indians were known in Asia Minor in Lucian’s day. |
The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from early 1st millennium BCE to the 11th centuryThe Hellenistic world
The Diadochi were the rival successors of Alexander. Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander’s death. Alexander’s most obvious legacy was the introduction of Macedonian rule to huge new swathes of Asia. Many of these areas would remain in Macedonian hands, or under Greek influence for the next 200–300 years.
Map of Alexander's empire and the paths he took
This was the beginning of the Hellenistic period of Greek history, the time when many people who were not Greek themselves adopted Greek philosophy and styles, Greek urban life, and aspects of the Greek religion. Their children and descendants, who were called Epigonoi (“offspring”), vied for control of the Diadochi’s empire.
One of the first representations of the Buddha, 1st-2nd century CE, Gandhara: Standing Buddha (Tokyo National Museum).
Some of the most unusual effects of Hellenisation can be seen in India, in the region of the relatively late-arising Indo-Greek kingdoms.
In the 1st or 2nd century CE, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were developed.
Silver coin depicting the Greek king Demetrius I of Bactria wearing an elephant scalp, symbol of his conquest of India in 180 BCE.
Many of the stylistic elements in the representations of the Buddha point to Greek influence: the Greek himation (a light toga-like wavy robe covering both shoulders: Buddhist characters are always represented with a dhoti loincloth before this innovation), the halo, the contrapposto stance of the upright figures, the stylised Mediterranean curly hair and top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330 BCE), and the measured quality of the faces, all rendered with strong artistic realism.
The coins of the Indo-Greek king Menander (reigned 160 to 135 BCE), found from Afghanistan to central India, bear the inscription “Saviour King Menander” in Greek on the front. Several Indo-Greek kings after Menander, such as Zoilos I, Strato I, Heliokles II, Theophilos, Peukolaos, Menander II and Archebios display on their coins the title of “Maharajasa Dharmika” (lit. “King of the Dharma”) in the Prakrit language and in the Kharoshthi script.
Some of the coins of Menander I and Menander II incorporate the Buddhist symbol of the eight-spoked wheel, associated with the Greek symbols of victory, either the palm of victory, or the victory wreath handed over by the goddess Nike. According to the Milinda Pañha, at the end of his reign Menander I became a Buddhist arhat, a fact also echoed by Plutarch, who explains that his relics were shared and enshrined.
Coin bearing the image of Pythagoras
Across the Hellenistic world created by Alexander – from the great port of Alexandria in Egypt to the Alexandrias of Greco-India – divinities appear in human form: Buddha, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana, Jesus Christ and Krishna, for example.
Whether this is always apotheosis, in which a person is raised to godlike stature – such as in the imperial cult of Rome – or something else, is unclear. What is clear is that in Classical Antiquity, this phenomenon comes from Achaemenid Persia, where kings were divine, and enters the Greek world through the father of Alexander.
Low-relief from Persepolis, showing a royal audience, probably by Darius. Initially placed at the center of the stairs of the Apadana, it was later moved to the Treasury, where another strictly similar relief is still in situ. National Museum; Tehran, Iran.
Proskynesis refers to the traditional Persian act of prostrating oneself before a person of higher social rank. According to Herodotus in his Histories, a person of equal rank received a kiss on the lips, someone of a slightly lower rank gave a kiss on the cheek, and someone of a very inferior social standing had to completely bow down to the other person before them.
To the Greeks, giving proskynesis to a mortal seemed to be a barbarian and ludicrous practice. They reserved such submissions for the gods only.
Alexander’s attempt to introduce proskynesis was not accepted by the Macedonians and Greeks in his army. If Alexander was murdered, then this is likely to have been the provocation.
Death of the man did not stop the process of Persian customs being diffused into the Hellenistic world.
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