c. 34-32 B.C. AR Denarius (3.21g, Alexandria(?) mint)

Cleopatra VII Philopator, born in 69 B.C., was the last of the Ptolemies. She came to the Egyptian throne jointly with her younger brother-husband Ptolemy XIII, was ousted in a palace civil war in 48 B.C., and was famously smuggled into Julius Caesar's presence in Alexandria rolled in a carpet during his pursuit of Pompey. Cleopatra's intellect and presence captivated Caesar; the two became lovers and produced a son, Caesarion (Ptolemy XV). Caesar restored her to the Egyptian throne, summoned her to Rome, and was assassinated on the Ides of March 44 B.C. while she was still in the city.

She returned to Alexandria, and in 41 B.C. was summoned by Marc Antony - the most powerful surviving member of the Triumvirate that had crushed Caesar's assassins. Like Caesar before him, Antony succumbed to her almost immediately. Within a year she had borne him twins. Their political alliance would underwrite Antony's wars in the East, and openly oppose Octavian (the future Augustus) in the West. In 36 B.C. Antony's Parthian campaign collapsed catastrophically when his baggage train was captured and the Armenian king Artavasdes II defected. In 34 B.C. Antony invaded Armenia, captured Artavasdes, and brought him to Alexandria in chains.

What he did next scandalised Rome: he celebrated a full Roman triumph in Alexandria - a ceremony Roman tradition reserved for the city of Rome itself - and then delivered the speech remembered as the Donations of Alexandria. In it he distributed eastern Roman provinces to his children by Cleopatra, declared Cleopatra "Queen of Kings," and proclaimed Caesarion the legitimate son and heir of Julius Caesar - explicitly displacing Octavian's claim. It was the moment that made the war of 32 B.C. inevitable. Two years later their fleet was destroyed at Actium; the year after that, both Antony and Cleopatra were dead.

This denarius was struck during exactly that moment - probably at a mobile mint travelling with Antony, possibly Alexandria itself - to commemorate the Armenian triumph and the Donations. The obverse carries the bare head of Marc Antony with the legend ANTONI ARMENIA DEVICTA ("Antony, Armenia having been conquered"). The reverse carries the diademed and draped bust of Cleopatra with prow before, and the legend CLEOPATRAE REGINAE REGUM FILIORUM REGUM - "Cleopatra, Queen of Kings, [Mother] of Sons who are Kings."

This is the only Roman coin in the entire late Republican / Imperatorial series to portray a non-Roman foreign monarch on equal terms with a Roman commander. Octavian's propaganda machine read it exactly as Antony intended, and used it to make the political case for war: a Roman general had subordinated Roman dignity to an eastern queen. Genuine examples of the Antony / Cleopatra denarius are among the most historically resonant coins of the entire ancient series - portraits of two of the most consequential figures of the ancient Mediterranean, struck in their joint name in the months before their world ended at Actium.