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Cleopatra and her Antony
 Rita Mailheau
The Romans hungered for acclaim. Ending with the collapse of Western Rome in 476 AD, the Romans chronicled over nine hundred years of their rise and eventual domination of the world stage in meticulous detail. Roman coins testify to Roman nationalistic lust for accolade and immortality. But among the Roman coins blazoning emperors and high dignitaries of the empire, one stands apart.
The front depicts Mark Antony, the handsome general, and the reverse, his glamorous wife, Cleopatra. Recently, one of these Roman coins sold online for $2000 US.
Antony and Cleopatra for centuries, their legendary romance has reverberated in literature, on the stage, and later on the screen. Plutarch's Lives recounts their first meeting. Cleopatra was summoned to Cilicia by Mark Antony to answer for giving wartime aid to Cassius. She sailed up the river Cnidus on a barge gilded in gold. The sails were purple, the oars silver, and the canopy that covered her was gold. The perfume her ladies diffused, wafted to the embankment where awed citizens took in the dazzling spectacle. Flute and pipe and harp kept beat as she neared shore. Antony was so enchanted by her audacious arrival that he contrived to host a more lavish entertainment the following evening. Their courtship, begun in competition, ended in love.
Though not a great beauty, Cleopatra captured the hearts of the most influential men of her day with grace and intelligence. Julius Caesar became her lover and fathered a son Caesarion. Mark Antony became her husband and fathered three other children Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene [twins], and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
To secure succession for Caesar's son and their own children, the couple minted this celebrated coin. The intended PR backfired, leading to conflict and later defeat against Octavian in the naval battle at Actium. In disgrace, they each took their own life.
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