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 head of King Juba II facing right, rendered in Hellenistic portrait style with finely detailed curling hair bound by a royal diadem, the ribbon ends falling behind the neck. The effigy is boldly struck within an irregular flan typical of Mauretanian silver coinage. The Latin legend REX IVBA is divided across the field, with REX to the left and IVBA to the right of the royal portrait. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Juba II was no provincial chieftain elevated by Roman patronage — he was raised in Rome after his father's defeat at Thapsus in 46 BC, educated alongside the Roman elite, and became one of the most prolific royal coin issuers in the western Mediterranean. His queen, Cleopatra Selene, was the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, brought to Rome as a child in chains to walk in her mother's triumph. Their paired coinage is the only series in the ancient world to place an Antonine-Ptolemaic princess beside a Numidian king.
The Copenhagen SNG gap for this type is worth noting — the series has significant die variation across the CNNM sequence, and examples remain unevenly distributed across institutional collections.