Denarius - Juba II and Cleopatra Selene Caesarea

Juba II was no ordinary client king. Raised in Rome after his father's defeat at Thapsus in 46 BC, he grew up in Caesar's household, became a close associate of Augustus, and was installed on the Mauretanian throne in roughly 25 BC as a deliberate projection of Roman cultural influence into North Africa. His queen, Cleopatra Selene, was the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra VII — brought to Rome as a captive child and paraded in Octavian's triumph before being married off to Juba. Their coinage is bilingual, struck to a Roman weight standard, and reflects a court that was consciously Hellenistic in pretension and Roman in political obligation.

The nearly five-decade span of this issue's dating reflects the long joint reign and the difficulty of assigning undated pieces to specific years.