Mark Antony & Cleopatra (36 BC) Silver Dual-Portrait Tetradrachm, Antioch

Description Roman Republic / Ptolemaic Egypt. Imperatorial Period. Mark Antony & Cleopatra, as rulers of the East AR (Silver) tetradrachm. Mint of Antioch, Syria; struck 36 BC. AG; popular type featuring the famous royal couple.   Design: Bare head of Mark Antony right; Armenian tiara to left / Diademed and draped bust of Cleopatra right Reference: RPC I 4094. McAlee 174. Prieur 27. Dimensions: 25 mm / 14.03 gm Condition: AG.   Cleopatra of Egypt Perhaps the most famous woman of the ancient world, Cleopatra captivated her contemporaries and modern audiences alike. Most of the ancient sources agree: she was not particularly beautiful, but the Egyptian queen enjoyed a certain seductive capacity that was unmatched at the time and later captured by Elizabeth Taylor in the popular 1963 film Cleopatra. She was the only member of her 300-year Ptolemaic Greek dynasty to learn the native Egyptian language, both in its hieroglyph and demotic forms. She was remarkably well-read and politically intelligent. Cleopatra initially struggled to assert herself against her hot-headed brother Ptolemy, but was able to win out with the help of Julius Caesar, who came to assist her following his defeat of Pompey the Great. Legend has it that Cleopatra smuggled herself into her first meeting with Caesar by hiding in a rolled-up carpet that was smuggled into Caesar’s private room. The two began a short romance, fathering Caesar’s only known biological son, Ptolemy Caesarion. Allegedly, the two new lovers sailed on a cruise down the Nile on a thalamegos (“pleasure barge”) and beheld the sights of Egypt, an account that may be fanciful. Cleopatra understood the frailty of her own kingdom, the last of the major independent Hellenistic (post-Alexander the Great) Greek states, and the need to ally with a Roman general to preserve Ptolemaic independence. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, she settled on Mark Antony, whom she met in grand style aboard a Mediterranean barge in 41 BC. Her relationship with Antony proved even more passionate than her romance with Caesar; the two began to style themselves as Selene (the Moon) and Helios (the Sun) and had several children together. Back in Rome, Antony’s liason with the decadent Eastern queen came to be the subject of ridicule and political slander. The hatred of Cleopatra among conservative Roman moralists was particularly vitriolic. The poet Horace wrote of her as the “queen plotting insane disaster for the Capitol, with her tainted crowd of followers hideous with disease.” Octavian, then master of Rome, used this to his advantage and declared war against Antony and Cleopatra, by now married, in 32 BC. The couple were defeated at sea at Actium in 31 BC, after which Cleopatra dramatically committed suicide by allowing a poisonous snake to bite her arm. Thus came about the Roman conquest of Egypt, the end of the Hellenistic Greek age, and the birth of the Roman Empire. Even Horace acknowledged Cleopatra’s resolute grace in defeat: “she dared endure the sight of her realm in ruins, her face serenely calm, and she had the strength to handle stinging serpents to absorb their black venom into her body, fierce as she resolved to die.”