It is usually thought that archaizing is a continuous and gradually evolving style in Greek art. But the choice by Ptolemy I for his tetradrachms of an archaizing Athena Promachos borrowed directly from Panathenaic amphorai was dramatic and significant as well as novel. It reveals an unprecedented awareness of the propaganda value of a very old and familiar symbol, and it is symptomatic of the strong historicism developing among the Greeks in the later fourth century. Ptolemy's shrewdness and political sense, compared to his rivals, have long been appreciated, but as yet they have remained unrelated to his choice of a meaningful visual image. most distinctive feature of that image is the swallowtail mantle. archaistic Athena Promachos was soon adopted widely for coinages by other monarchs, and in almost all such cases we may deduce that they were directly inspired by Ptolemy himself. This seems to suggest that this Egyptian ruler of the early Hellenistic period was a special promoter of a new artistic style we call archaistic. His presence in Egypt, where archaistic revivals had been common, may have made Ptolemy unusually sensitive to the purposes and effectiveness of borrowing older art forms. On coins issued by Alexander the Great in 326/5 at Amphipolis, one side carries the magnificent profile of a lion-helmeted Herakles; on the reverse, the god Zeus, holding scepter and eagle, is seated on a throne (pl. 7, fig. I). Just to the left, near Zeus' knee, we can discern the diminutive form of another figure: the goddess Athena, facing right, in her most formidable fighting pose. She wields a spear in her right hand, a shield is grasped in her left and she wears an Attic helmet. Her body is rigid and her two feet are close together. This is the first time this particular image of Athena appeared on a coin. What must be especially observed, however, is one item of her clothing: the narrow shawl, draped around her arms, and then falling vertically on either side of her body, to end in folds which fan out symmetrically. This piece of drapery or mantle' seems very neatly arranged, as if it were a formula or pattern. A decade later a similar image of fighting Athena turns up again on coins which were minted in a different part of the Mediterranean world. These were issued in Alexandria by Ptolemy between 315 and 3Io before he declared himself king.2 obverse of the coin exhibits the head of the deified Alexander the Great, and the reverse now affords a much clearer look at the goddess because she fills the entire coin; indeed, Athena here seems more formidable and more impressive than before (pl. 7, fig. 2). She continues to face toward the right, but she now takes a vigorous step forward, with her feet wide apart and on tiptoe. She is at one and the same time aggressive and proud yet stylish and elegant. However, the most significant feature of this coin device is now clearly visible. A long thin circles around her back and over her upper arms and then drops to terminate in two identical swallowtails. Once again this piece of drapery endows the figure with a special identity. origin and meaning of this Ptolemaic coin* In abbreviated form, this article was read at a session of the meetings of the College Art Association in New York, January 1978. It is the third in a series of articles; see C.M. Havelock, AJA 68 (1964) 43-58, 188 and AJA 69 (1965) 331-40. 1 E.B. Harrison, in her very useful survey of archaistic dress (Athenian Agora XI, Archaic and Archaistic Sculpture from the Athenian Agora [Princeton 1965] 61) notes that this small draped mantle ends in symmetrical swallowtails by the second half of the fourth century when it becomes a hallmark of the archaistic manner in general. 2 exact dating of the first appearance of these Ptolemaic coins is controversial. I have adopted the views expressed by G.K. Jenkins in An Early Ptolemaic Hoard from Phacous, ANSMN 9 (1960) 17-37 and O.H. Zervos, The Early Tetradrachms of Ptolemy I, ANSMN 13 (1967) 1-16. However, my thesis in the present article is not affected by the contro-