Antony and Cleopatra: a Match Made on Coinage—Lucia Carbone
Channel: American Numismatic Society
Date: 2020-04-08

Money Talks
April 4, 2020

Curator of Roman Coinage, Dr. Lucia Carbone, hosts a Money Talks session on the coinage of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Money Talks are an informal series of talks typically held at the American Numismatic Society once a month.  

Mark Antony is one of the most fascinating and contradictory figures in the history of Late Republic Rome. Oblivious of his legitimate Roman wife Octavia and of his duty towards Rome, he allegedly submitted to the degraded East, represented by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII Eupator. However, his passion for Cleopatra could be seen as a way to establish a privileged relationship between the Roman Empire and Egypt, the cradle of an ancient culture but also a key provider of wheat. On the other hand, Cleopatra, a woman who could speak seven languages and had lived for years in Rome, likely saw in Mark Antony a fascinating and capable partner in the creation of a Roman-Egyptian dynasty in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Coinage represented a central element in Antony and Cleopatra’s dynastic propaganda. Their monetary policy in the East represented a real ‘revolution’, a turning point for the coinage produced and circulating in the Eastern provinces of the Empire. In the iconography, the medium and the weight of their coins, Antony and Cleopatra introduced radical changes that became the norm in the Imperial Age.