Head of a Successor of Alexander the Great

Acquired in the second half of the 18^th century by the Duke of Arenberg, Brussels, this greater-than-life-size statue is part of a large group of highly idealized portraits that became common in Hellenistic Egypt and in the kingdoms ruled by Alexander the Great’s generals and successors (the Diadochoi). Indeed, in the attempt to legitimate their claims to power by proxy, Ptolemy I and the other Diadochoi adopted for their official portraits physiognomic features that openly alluded to those of Alexander. Three centuries later the first Roman emperors, who also positioned themselves as political heirs to Alexander, commissioned copies of these early models, keeping this sculptural type alive well into the second century CE.