Catalog
Denarius - Juba II and Cleopatra Selene Caesarea
| Issuer | Mauretania |
|---|---|
| Year | 11-23 |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Diademed bare head of King Juba II facing right, rendered in a Hellenistic portrait style with curling hair and a royal diadem tied at the back. A crescent symbol appears before the royal portrait in the field. The encircling Latin legend reads REX IVBA, identifying the ruler as King Juba. The portrait exhibits fine die work characteristic of the Caesarean mint, combining Roman artistic conventions with the dynastic imagery of the Mauretanian monarchy. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | REX IVBA (Translation: King Juba) |
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| Additional information |
Juba II was installed as client king of Mauretania by Augustus around 25 BC — not because of any ancestral claim to the region, but because Rome needed a reliable administrator in North Africa and Juba, raised in Rome after his father's defeat at Thapsus, was thoroughly Romanized. His queen, Cleopatra Selene, was the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra VII, brought to Rome as a child to walk in her mother's place during Octavian's triumph. That two such figures ended up ruling a North African kingdom together is one of the stranger diplomatic outcomes of the Augustan settlement.
The Caesarea mint issues from this joint reign span roughly 25 BC to Juba's death around AD 23, making precise dating within that window genuinely difficult for most types.