How do rulers use art, images and monuments to persuade people to accept their legitimacy and authority as rulers? Why did Alexander the Great in particular become one of the major prototypes for good rulers for the next millennium?
Here are the images we’ll be looking at: Persepolis, Alexander portraits, Alexander Mosaic.
Readings:
- PBS video, “The Art of Persuasion,” episode 3 of the series, How Art Made the World, 2006. Available on our course Moodle page.
- The Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, on Smarthistory
If you are curious about the guy with the gold hair-clips who may have built Stonehenge (or are wondering how they could possibly tell that he came from Central Europe) here is a good, short reading on him. (NOT required)
