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Cleopatra VII Tetradrachm, Paphos, Year 10

Type · cleopatra-vii-paphos-tetradrachm

My specimens (1)

cleopatra-vii-paphos-tetradrachm-001

13.971 g (tag) · 24.9 mm · axis 0° · VF, scrapes, scratches, some corrosion and encrustation

Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean coast on Shepherd’s 1923 map. Paphos — circled in red — on the island’s southwest coast was the seat of the Ptolemaic (and later Roman) administration of Cyprus and its principal mint. Alexandria lies beyond the map’s lower edge, some 400 km south across open water; the Levantine coast at right is the world of the Donations of Alexandria, by which Antony parceled these shores among Cleopatra’s children.

Image source & licence

“Asia Minor under the Greeks and Romans” from William R. Shepherd, The Historical Atlas (1923). Public domain (author died 1934); house copy of the plate. Modified by JSB Coins: cropped to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean, and a red circle added to mark Paphos.

Catalogue References

• Svoronos 1824 (assigned there to Ptolemy XIII — superseded) current
• SNG Copenhagen 404 current
• SNG Milan 421 current
• BMC Ptolemies p. 115, 10 current
• Hosking 140 current

Historical Context

The Queen Behind the King’s Mask

This is a coin of the most famous woman of the ancient world, on which she appears nowhere. Struck at Paphos on Cyprus in her tenth regnal year — 43/42 BC, the year after Caesar’s assassination — it carries the images her dynasty had used for two and a half centuries: the diademed, aegis-wearing head of Ptolemy I, founder of the house, and the eagle on the thunderbolt, with the changeless legend ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ, “of King Ptolemy.” Only the small marks in the field tell the truth of the moment: LI, year 10 — of Cleopatra VII — above the headdress of Isis, the goddess the queen claimed as her own.

Cyprus and the queen

Cyprus was the Ptolemaic empire’s last overseas possession, lost to Rome in 58 BC and pointedly restored to Cleopatra by Julius Caesar (and confirmed by Antony) — a restoration this coinage embodies: Paphos, the island’s capital, resumed striking regnal-dated royal tetradrachms. Year 10 fell in 43/42 BC, when the Roman world was tearing itself apart after the Ides of March; Cleopatra, governing from Alexandria with her son Caesarion as co-ruler, held Cyprus through a governor and equipped fleets from it in the wars that followed. Within a few years she would stand with Mark Antony against Octavian; the legionary denarii of Patrae, paid for from her treasury, are the other side of the story this quiet provincial tetradrachm begins.

The queen the coins never show

The frozen founder’s portrait on this coin makes it worth asking what Cleopatra actually looked like — a question her own coinage answers elsewhere, unflatteringly. Where she does appear — on the bronze 80-drachma pieces of Alexandria, and on the silver she shared with Antony at eastern mints in the 30s BC — the queen has a strong hooked nose and a jutting chin, a deliberately Ptolemaic, dynastic face rather than a romantic one. Plutarch, writing four generations later from the memories of men who had known her court, insists the power was never in the face: her beauty “was not altogether incomparable,” but her presence, her conversation, and a voice “like an instrument of many strings” were irresistible (Antony 27) — she spoke, he adds, most of the languages of her subjects, the first of her dynasty to trouble learning Egyptian. On this Cypriot silver, none of that appears at all: royal tetradrachms wore the dynasty’s mask, because the institution outranked the person — even this person.

Whose coin? Svoronos’s Ptolemy XIII and the modern reading

The attribution has its own history, preserved on the dealer’s tag. Svoronos (1904–08) catalogued the issue as no. 1824 under Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s brother and first co-ruler, reading the regnal years as his. The regnal-year sequence of the late Paphos mint is now read as Cleopatra’s own — Mørkholm’s study of the last Ptolemaic silver of Cyprus (Chiron 13, 1983) is the standard treatment, and year 10 = 43/42 BC falls years after Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile (47 BC), settling the question for this date at least. The old attribution is kept searchable here, as auction records under “Ptolemy XIII, Svoronos 1824” describe exactly this coinage.

The last Ptolemaic silver

The fabric tells the dynasty’s late story: a dumpy, reduced-standard tetradrachm of just under 14 g, its silver visibly baser than the bright metal of the third century — the currency of a kingdom that had spent generations debasing to survive. It is nonetheless true royal silver, struck for pay and trade in the kingdom’s last decade, and the final issue of a coinage tradition that ran back three centuries: the same eagle, the same legend, the same founder’s portrait as on the money of the dynasty’s height (this collection’s great bronze of Ptolemy III carries the pair a hundred and eighty years earlier). After Actium and the queen’s death in 30 BC, Egypt’s mints would strike for Rome — and Egypt itself would become an emperors’ possession, pictured a century and a half later on this collection’s AEGYPTOS denarius of Hadrian.

Sources

Attribution and references: the Forum Ancient Coins listing and tag (GP77852): Svoronos 1824 (as Ptolemy XIII), SNG Copenhagen 404, SNG Milan 421, BMC Ptolemies p. 115, 10, Hosking 140. The late Cypriot regnal-year silver: O. Mørkholm, “The last Ptolemaic silver coinage in Cyprus,” Chiron 13 (1983), pp. 69–79; M. Kreuzer, The Coinage System of Cleopatra VII, Marc Antony and Augustus in Cyprus (2004); C. C. Lorber, Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire (2018) for the corpus framework. Historical frame: Caesar’s restoration of Cyprus and the events of 43/42 BC per the standard narratives (Plutarch, Caesar and Antony; Cassius Dio 42–47). For the end of the story, Cassius Dio 51 (linked in the references).

Further reading — Forum’s Ptolemaic bibliography

The reference list below is the standing Ptolemaic bibliography that Forum Ancient Coins prints on its Ptolemaic listings, captured from this coin’s listing (GP77852) — a useful working library for the series, beyond the specific references cited above. For a Cypriot issue like this one, note especially Hill’s BMC Cyprus, the two Nicosia Cyprus catalogues, Nicolaou’s Paphos II, the Mørkholm Cyprus studies, and Kreuzer.

• Aumaître, H. & C. Lorber. “New Evidence Concerning a Mint Imitating Ptolemaic Tetradrachms” in INR 16 (2021), pp. 59–70, pls. 2–5.
• Brett, A. “Dated coins of Ptolemy V, 204–180 B.C.” in ANSMN 2 (1947), pp. 1–11.
• Brooks, E. “The overstruck coinage of Ptolemy I” in ANSMN 6 (1954), pp. 69–84.
• Burnett, A., M. Amandry, et al. Roman Provincial Coinage (1992–).
• Cox, D. Coins from the Excavations at Curium, 1932–1953. ANSNNM 145 (New York, 1959).
• Davesne, A. & G. Le Rider. Gülnar II. Le trésor de Meydancikkale (Paris, 1989).
• Faucher, T., A. Meadows & C. Lorber. Egyptian Hoards I, The Ptolemies (2017).
• Faucher, T. & M. Shahin. “Le Trésor de Gezeir (lac Mariout, Alexandrie)” in RN 162 (2006), pp. 135–157.
• Gitler, H. & D. Master. “Cleopatra at Ascalon: Recent Finds from the Leon Levy Expedition” in INR 5 (2010), pp. 67–98.
• Hill, G. A Catalog of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, Greek Coins of Cyprus (London, 1904).
• Hill, G. Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum: Phoenicia (London, 1910).
• Jenkins, G. “An early Ptolemaic hoard from Phacous” in ANSMN 9 (1960), pp. 17–37.
• Kreuzer, M. The Coinage System of Cleopatra VII, Marc Antony and Augustus in Cyprus (Springfield, MA, 2004).
• Lorber, C. Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire (New York, 2018).
• Macdonald, G. Catalog of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collection, Vol. III (Glasgow, 1905).
• Malter, J. The Coinage of Ancient Egypt, Auction II (Encino, CA, 1978).
• Michaelidou, L., ed. Museum of the History of Cypriot Coinage, Coin Catalogue (Nicosia, 1996).
• Michaelidou, L. & E. Zapiti. Coins of Cyprus, From the Collection of the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation (Nicosia, 2008).
• Mildenberg, L. “Yehud: A Preliminary Study of the Provincial Coinage of Judaea” in Essays Thompson.
• Meshorer, Y., et al. Coins of the Holy Land: The Abraham and Marian Sofaer Collection. ACNAC 8 (New York, 2013).
• Mørkholm, O. “Cyprus Hoard, 1982” in NC 147 (1987), pp. 156–158.
• Mørkholm, O. Early Hellenistic Coinage. From the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336–188 BC) (Cambridge, 1991).
• Mørkholm, O. “Ptolemaic coins and chronology: The dated silver coinage of Alexandria” in ANSMN 20 (1975), pp. 7–24.
• Mørkholm, O. “The Ptolemaic ‘coins of an uncertain era’” in Nordisk Numismatisk Årsskrift 1975–1976, pp. 23–58.
• Mørkholm, O. “The last Ptolemaic silver coinage in Cyprus” in Chiron 13 (1983), pp. 69–79.
• Nicolaou, I. Paphos II. The Coins from the House of Dionysos (Nicosia, 1990).
• Noeske, H. Die Münzen der Ptolemäer (Frankfurt, 2000).
• Olivier, J. & T. Faucher. “EH 69. Le Trésor de Paphos (IGCH 1471; CH 2.106; 4.68)” in Egyptian Hoards I (2017), pp. 258–315, pls. 101–224.
• Pitchfork, C. The Jon Hosking Collection of Ptolemaic Coins (Sydney, 2000).
• Poole, R. A Catalog of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, the Ptolemies, Kings of Egypt (London, 1882).
• Robinson, E. A Catalog of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, The Greek Coins of Cyrenaica (London, 1927).
• Rosenberger, M. The Rosenberger Israel Collection (Jerusalem, 1972–1978).
• Sear, D. Greek Coins and Their Values, Volume 2, Asia and Africa (London, 1979).
• Svoronos, J. Ta Nomismata tou Kratous ton Ptolemaion (Athens, 1904–08).
• SNG Denmark, Danish National Museum, Vol. 8: Egypt, North Africa, Spain–Gaul (New Jersey, 1994).
• SNG Italy, Milano XIII, Aegyptus, Part 1: Ptolemaei (Milan, 1989).
• Weiser, W. Katalog Ptolemäischer Bronzemünzen der Sammlung des Instituts für Altertumskunde, Universität Köln (Opladen, 1995).
• Visonà, P. “A Hoard of Ptolemaic Bronze Coins in the J. Paul Getty Museum” in J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 6–7 (1978–1979), pp. 153–162.
• Wolf, D. “New Observations on the Ptolemaic Bronze Coinage of Tyre” in INR 11 (2016), pp. 29–46, pls. 4–6.
• Wolf, D. “The ‘Galatian Shield Without Σ’ Series of Ptolemaic Bronze Coins” in NC 171 (2011), pp. 7–52, pls. 1–3.
• Wolf, D. The PtolemAE Project — http://ptolemybronze.com/
• Wolf, D. & C. Lorber. “Syracusan Imitations of the Bronze Diobols of Ptolemy II Philadelphus” (19 March 2009).
• Zervos, O. “The early tetradrachms of Ptolemy I” in ANSMN 13 (1967), pp. 1–16.
• Zervos, O. “The Delta hoard of Ptolemaic ‘Alexanders’” in ANSMN 21 (1976), pp. 37–58.

Notes

Late Ptolemaic reduced-standard tetradrachm (this specimen 13.971 g; the standard had drifted well below the c. 14.3 g of earlier Ptolemaic silver). ATTRIBUTION: Svoronos gave the issue to Ptolemy XIII; the now-standard reading takes the Paphos regnal-year series LI = year 10 as Cleopatra VII's (43/42 BC) — Mørkholm's Chiron 13 study is the key treatment of these last Cypriot tetradrachms. The obverse is the frozen dynastic portrait of Ptolemy I (with aegis), not Cleopatra; the legend likewise stays 'of King Ptolemy.' The Isis headdress under the date is a small but pointed touch for a queen who styled herself the New Isis.

References & Further Reading

• Otto Mørkholm (1983) The last Ptolemaic silver coinage in Cyprus
  Chiron 13 (1983), pp. 69–79 — the study of the late Cypriot regnal-year tetradrachms and their attribution among the last Ptolemies
• Michael Kreuzer (2004) The Coinage System of Cleopatra VII, Marc Antony and Augustus in Cyprus
  Springfield, MA, 2004
• Catharine C. Lorber (2018) Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire
  American Numismatic Society (New York, 2018) — current corpus framework for the Ptolemaic series
• Plutarch (trans. Evelyn/Clough) (1859) Plutarch, Life of Antony (English translation) [link]
  Wikisource — the source of almost everything posterity believes about Cleopatra, hostile and dazzled at once; chapter 27 for the famous verdict on her charm, chapters 25–29 for the meeting at Tarsos and the Alexandrian winter
• Cassius Dio (Loeb trans., LacusCurtius) (1917) Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 51 (English translation) [link]
  LacusCurtius (University of Chicago) — the fullest connected account of the end: Actium's aftermath, the negotiations with Octavian, the asp and the alternative stories, and Egypt made a Roman possession

John's Ancient Coin Collection · Type · cleopatra-vii-paphos-tetradrachm

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