The original of this Roman denarius coin commemorates the conquest by Mark Antony over the Armenians in 34 BC. The Armenian crown behind Antony represents his victorious Roman army, the prow beneath Cleopatra (which appears on no other Roman coin of hers) stands for the mighty Egyptian fleet.
Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) was queen of Egypt when the Roman Empire was gradually expanding into the wealthy eastern Mediterranean. By allying herself first with the powerful Roman generals Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) and then Mark Antony (83–30 BCE), she hoped to maintain her country’s independence and her own authority. The political alliance between Antony and Cleopatra worried Caesar’s heir, Octavian, who, in 31 BCE, defeated the couple in a sea battle. Rather than suffer the humiliation of surrender, Cleopatra and Antony killed themselves.
Antonine Numismatics is a leading supplier of Museum Specimen coins supplied to collectors, museums , films & theatre. All our coins have been hand cast from moulds supplied by curators of important numismatic collections over the last 20 years
and we specialise in replicas from the rarest Ancient Greek, Celtic and Roman coins through to the 18th Century.
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