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# Horns on the helmet of Alexander the Great and their link to the cult of Zeus and Amon
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/shlem-makedonskogo-v-filme-dzhentelmeny-udachi-sdelan-iz-kaski-pozharnogo/
- Published: 2021-09-08T13:59:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:53:04.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Cinema, Monarchies, Humour

The helmet of Alexander of Macedon in the film "Gentlemen of Fortune" is made from a fireman's helmet. Alexander did in fact have a horned helmet, but the point is not whether it bore even the faintest resemblance to a firefighter's hard hat painted gold. The point is where the horns come from.

Pindar has these lines:  
..The daughter of Epaphus  
Will take as a seedling for the soil of Zeus Ammon..

This concerns the synthesis of the Egyptian cult of Amun and the Greek cult of Zeus. By Alexander's reign, Zeus and Amun had been worshipped in the Hellenic world for a hundred years already, if not as a single deity, then as manifestations of one another. The iconography of Amun, meanwhile, is closely bound up with the image of a ram's head and horns. Diodorus Siculus reports that the god Amun was ram-headed and could wear a helmet with horns.

On arriving in Egypt, Alexander, wishing to confirm his divine descent, set out for the centre of Amun's worship, the temple at Siwa, where the oracle ultimately pronounced him the son of Zeus-Amun. After that the commander could wear a two-horned helmet with a clear conscience and have himself struck on coins in that guise.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_4969@08-09-2021_16-59-28.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_4970@08-09-2021_16-59-28.jpg)