Cleopatra Selene II

Cleopatra Selene II was the daughter of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman triumvir Mark Antony, and the twin sister of Alexander Helios, born about 40 BC. In the Donations of Alexandria of 34 BC she was proclaimed ruler of Cyrenaica and Crete. After Actium and the deaths of her parents in 30 BC she and her brothers were taken to Rome, walked in Octavian's triumph, and raised in the household of Octavia. Around 25 BC Augustus married her to the scholar-king Juba II and installed the couple over the client kingdom of Mauretania, ruling from the new capital Caesarea. There she became a notable cultural patron, importing Alexandrian and Ptolemaic style into a North African court, and was the only child of Cleopatra VII known to have left descendants, through her son Ptolemy of Mauretania. Her death is conventionally placed around 5 BC, though the exact year is debated and rests partly on a poem of Crinagoras describing a lunar eclipse; some scholars argue for a later date. She is the genealogical and cultural bridge by which the Ptolemaic line passed into the Roman client-king world.

Cleopatra Selene II is the most numismatically interesting of the two Class-B Ptolemies by a wide margin: her Mauretanian coinage is a conscious revival of Ptolemaic and Egyptian iconography inside a Roman client kingdom, the last coinage struck by Ptolemaic blood and a direct visual echo of her mother's Egypt. Genealogically she carries the dynasty forward into the network of Roman client royalty, making her the bridge figure between the Hellenistic and the Roman-imperial worlds.

Key Events

Coinage

Unlike most late Ptolemies, Cleopatra Selene II has a genuine, distinctive coinage, struck in Mauretania alongside the Latin-legend royal coinage of her husband Juba II. Her own issues carry Greek legends naming Queen Cleopatra and a deliberately Egyptianising visual programme — the crescent moon punning on her name Selene, the crocodile, the sistrum, the headdress of Isis — set against Juba's classicising Roman types. The contrast is intentional: on the same coinage of one client kingdom, a king advertises Romanitas while his queen advertises Ptolemaic Egypt. It is the visual afterlife of Cleopatra VII's kingdom, struck a generation later and a thousand kilometres west, and it is real catalogue material, organised by Mazard's corpus of Numidian and Mauretanian coinage.

Collecting Guide

This is a collectible series in its own right. The prizes are the Greek-legend, Egyptianising silver and bronze in Cleopatra Selene's own name, distinct from the commoner Juba II Latin coinage with which they are often grouped. Mazard's Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque is the catalogue to work from. Beware generic Mauretanian bronze sold up under her name, and the usual elevated forgery rate that attaches to anything carrying the Cleopatra association.

Market Overview

Securely attributed silver in Cleopatra Selene's own name runs from the high hundreds into the low thousands by type and grade, with the overtly Egyptianising types carrying the strongest premium; her bronze is more accessible. The Cleopatra-daughter association drives demand, so a published pedigree is worth paying for and is the best protection against the fakes the name attracts.

Related Resources

Further Reading

• The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene, Duane W. Roller
• Cleopatra's Daughter, Jane Draycott