Alexander's personal royal style provided the basic model for his Successors. He had conquered as a young man and died young; he was thought of as handsome, energetic, charismatic, and gave out intimations of association with various gods and heroes (Zeus-Ammon, Dionysos, Herakles). Philip II, Alexander's father, like the Greeks of his generation, had worn a full beard. Alexander chose to shave, for several possible reasons. Beardlessness maintained the youthful appearance of the time of his great victories, and it evoked the young gods and heroes, like Achilles, whom he emulated. It was also a strikingly new manner of self-presentation that contrasted both with that of his father and that of the Greeks of the city-states. That Alexander was actually young and apparently handsome was merely an historical accident, but one of great importance for the later history of royal portraits and for male self-presentation more generally. To be clean shaven quickly became the new mode among Alexander's officers and soldiers and, we will see, for some others. Portraits of Alexander and a typical Hellenistic king share some essential features: beardlessness, dynamism, thick 'royal' hair, and a variable degree of divinization drawn from the late Classical repertoire of young gods and heroes. The divine or ideal components are adjusted to avoid a simple assimilation or equation with the gods. The king was godlike but separate from the traditional Olympians.
Three classic Alexander types are preserved in more than one copy: the Azara, the Dresden, and the Erbach. The inscribed Azara herm, though poorly preserved, is an important and impressive image. Alexander has long hair arranged around the head in a 'wreath', brushed up from the forehead in a distinctive, off-centre parting, the anastole-a personal 'sign' of Alexander seen on all his portraits. The square face combines elements of the real Alexander and a strong ideal structure. He is older, more restrained, more mature than in any of his other portraits, for example, there is no upward turn of the head and neck. The Dresden type is younger, with an anastole but shorter hair at the back and sides. The strong jaw gives it subtle individuality: it has much ideal form but is still clearly a 'portrait', that is, it could not be mistaken for a god or hero. The Erbach type has longer hair and is even younger. Of the three it is the most ideal, drawing on images of young Herakles for the face; but it retains enough Alexander traits in the jaw and the anastole to be recognizable.
Of the three our Alexander most closely resembles the Dresden type, however it finds even closer parallels in the portrait head from Egypt in the British museum and a highly idealized head in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes.
