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The rendition of living (or just deceased) persons with clearly recognizable individual features on coins was developed at the intersection of Greek and Persian cultural areas as a result of the grown complexity of political power-structures. Where at first the emblem of a dominant community or a figure with the general attributes of royal authority had been sufficient to guarantee for the value of the money thus hallmarked, the increased circulation of coinages by rivalling issuers within one area called for a far more sophisticated differentiation of the various issues and the claims to rulership, which the respective images were meant to transmit. This was also true in cases, where the iconography was devised to express a certain hierarchy with different levels of power as in the various series struck by subordinates of the Achaemenid kings. Initially those coins were just intended to represent the authority of the overlord, but occasionally they were also used in competition to the ruling system, which made rather complex visual messages with a stronger emphasis on the personal identity of the respective issuer necessary. It is not by chance that at the different coinages of Lycia, where numerous dynastic clans competed with each other in a comparatively small and secluded space beyond the immediate range of superior influence, the first attempts to a distinction of the various issuers by a gradual adoption of their individual likenesses on the coins in their names have been made. The dissolution of the traditional order and the new political arrangement of the various territories in Anatolia and the Middle East brought about by the campaign of Alexander led to a multiplication of regional power-centres, – all with their own coin issues, that represented competing claims to rulership. Beginning with the coinages of the Ptolemies and of the Seleucids more and more individual portraits of the respective rulers were applied on the coins in order to make the issuing entities easier to distinguish from each other even by illiterate users. Only in some rather remote and secluded areas at the periphery of the different power-blocks, where there was no constant influx of other currencies, a merely symbolic representation of the rulers was still functional for some time.

This paper presents a new approach to the study of Hellenistic grave stelai by comparing them to modern day, non-commercial billboard advertisements, such as election posters. The syncrisis shows that grave stelai not only had a private function for the remaining members of the family but also a “political” purpose as exemplification of the own social, economical and religious ideal. Both media show similarities by which the essay will be structured. They share characteristic settings hence they get only short attention. Furthermore they use similar iconographic strategies like the interaction of scripture and image, symbols and gesture. Taking the god Hermes as my central example, I argue that the grave stelai are a part of an intra-community discourse exemplary shown in rich seaports at the borders of the Greek world. In accordance with stelai election posters were made by a party to reach a group whose members identify themselves with the ideas of the party. Thus representations of Hermes were used to show the ideals of education, athletic competition, exemplary holding of public office, wealth and spending money for the community as well as the correct way of performing cult rituals. Der Beitrag bietet einen neuen Blick auf antike Grabstelen, indem diese mit modernen, nicht-kommerziellen Werbetafeln wie Wahlplakaten verglichen werden. Durch die Gegenüberstellung wird deutlich, dass die Grabstelen neben der privaten Funktion für die Hinterbliebenen auch eine „politische“ Funktion als Ausdruck des eigenen sozialen, ökonomischen und religiösen Lebensideals hatten. Entsprechend ist der Aufsatz anhand der Ähnlichkeiten beider Medien strukturiert. So sind die charakteristischen Aufstellungskontexte beider vergleichbar aus denen eine kurze Aufmerksamkeit resultiert. Zudem wird bei beiden auf gleiche ikonographische Strategien zurückgegriffen wie das Zusammenspiel von Schrift und Bild, Symbole und Gesten. Als zentrales Beispiel wurden Darstellungen des Gottes Hermes gewählt, weil hierdurch gezeigt werden kann, dass Grabstelen ein Teil des innergemeinschaftlichen Diskurses zum Beispiel in den reichen Hafenstädten an den Rändern der griechischen Einflusssphäre waren. Genau wie die Grabstelen werden auch Wahlwerbeplakate von einer Gemeinschaft, zumeist der Partei, entwickelt, um eine Gruppe von Wählern zu erreichen, die sich mit den Ideen der Partei identifiziert. Als Ergebnis lässt sich festhalten, dass Darstellungen des Hermes benutzt wurden, um die bürgerlichen Ideale der Ausbildung, des sportlichen Wettkampfes, der korrekten Amtsführung, des Reichtums und der Freigebigkeit im Sinne der Gemeinschaft sowie der regelmäßigen und korrekten Hinwendung an die Götter zu präsentieren.