ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA: COIN FIND CHANGES THE FACES OF HISTORY
Martin Wainwright
The Guardian, UK
Feb 14 2007
Profiles of the Egyptian queen and her lover on a silver denari belie
fabled beauty
Heads you lose! The 32BC coin showing Cleopatra’s profile.
Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
Two of history’s most famous Valentines are gently debunked today by
analysis of an exceptionally well-preserved Roman coin, which gives
the lie to the fabled beauty of Cleopatra and the manly features of
her lover Mark Antony.
Far from possessing the classical looks of Elizabeth Taylor, or the
many other goddesses who have played her on stage and screen, the
Egyptian queen is shown with a shrewish profile while Antony suffers
from bulging eyes, a crooked nose and a bull neck.
Debated for centuries, but with little effect against a tide of
romance backed by Shakespeare, Delacroix and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
the faces of the couple have the stamp of authenticity on the silver
denarius found in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was coined in Antony’s own
mint to mark his victories in Armenia in 32BC, achieved with the help
of Cleopatra’s one undoubted attraction, her money.
"Its other distinction is that it looks as though it was minted
yesterday," said Melanie Reed from Newcastle University, whose
archaeology museum found the 5p-sized coin while researching a
forgotten 18th century hoard left for years in a local bank. "The
profiles in particular are in marvellously good condition. If a Roman
invader brought it over here, he or she certainly knew how to take
care of their loose change."
Coins showing the doomed pair of lovers, who were to kill themselves
within two years in the face of ruin, are not uncommon, but the
majority are in poor condition or have more flattering images. The
Newcastle find, minted at a time when Antony and Cleopatra faced
internal rebellion and outside invasion, may deliberately have
emphasised the reality of the pair, to deter pretenders.
The inscriptions also play up the couple’s power, with the Roman
general’s head surrounded by the words "Antoni Armenia devicta" –
for Antony, Armenia having been vanquished. Cleopatra gets the still
more boastful "Reginae regum filiorumque regum" – Queen of kings
and of the children of kings, or possibly Queen of kings and of her
children who are kings – her twin son and daughter were in titular
charge of everything from the Caucasus to Libya.
The question of Cleopatra’s looks has fascinated posterity,
particularly during male-dominated centuries when it was seen as
the key to her hold over Antony and, before him, Julius Caesar. She
is said to have seduced Caesar in 48BC by presenting herself to him
rolled up in a rare and valuable Persian carpet, with nothing else on.
"The popular image we have of Cleopatra is that of a beautiful
queen who was adored by Roman politicians and generals," said Clare
Pickersgill, assistant director of archaeological museums at Newcastle
University. "But the coinage bears out recent research which suggests
there was much more to her than that."
The denarius profile clearly emphasises strong characteristics
including a determined, pointed chin, thin lips which are often
associated with a sharp nature, and in particular a long, pointed
nose. The last has been famously central to discussion of what
Cleopatra really looked like, with Pascal going so far as to write
in his Pensees: "Cleopatra’s nose, had it been shorter, the whole
face of the world would have been changed."
His point – that a softer, Elizabeth Taylor-like queen might have
persuaded her great lovers to give up conquering the world and retire
by the Nile – was later undermined by the Romantic movement. Ms
Pickersgill said: "Orientalist artists of the 19th century and then
modern Hollywood depictions, especially by Taylor and Richard Burton
in the 1963 movie, built up the role of Cleopatra as a great beauty."
The queen’s contemporaries took a different line, according to Lindsay
Allason-Jones, director of archaeological museums at Newcastle,
who said that Roman and Egyptian writers had a clearer-eyed view of
her talents.
"The idea of Cleopatra as a beautiful seductress is much more recent,"
she said. "Classical age writers tell us that she was intelligent
and charismatic, and that she had a seductive voice. But tellingly,
they make little of her beauty."
The coin, which was originally found by an unknown member of the
Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, goes on display from
today at the Shefton Museum on Newcastle University’s campus.
It was rediscovered during a huge trawl of the north-east for items
to go on display in the Great North Museum which opens in Newcastle
in 2009.
Descended from Alexander the Great, Cleopatra ("Father’s joy") was the
last independent ruler of Egypt before the Roman conquest in 30BC by
Octavian, later Augustus, which ended the civil war and began the Roman
empire. She killed herself with a poisonous snake shortly after the
suicide of Mark Antony, Octavian’s main rival in the Roman civil war,
following the disastrous sea battle of Actium off the coast of Egypt.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress