Chances are you’ll not have heard of the Roman shopper kingdom of Mauretania, to not be confused with the up to date African nation Mauritania. The previous existed for a scant 65 years, from round 25 BCE, when it was created by the primary Roman emperor Augustus, till 40 CE, when its second and remaining king was executed by Augustus’ great-grandson Gaius, higher identified to posterity as Caligula. In contrast to its up to date – the Roman shopper kingdom of Judea (fashionable Israel), whose historical past was recorded for posterity by the historian Josephus – no written report of Mauretania (fashionable Algeria and Morocco) has survived from antiquity. If we need to try and reconstruct what was happening within the kingdom throughout this era, we have now to have a look at different kinds of proof – archaeological proof. By far essentially the most informative kind of archaeological proof for this time and place is numismatic: the coinage issued by King Juba, Queen Cleopatra Selene, and their son King Ptolemy – three historic figures of whom it’s possible you’ll likewise not have heard.
In my view, essentially the most traditionally vital of the three is Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, and Marcus Antonius (identified in the present day as Mark Antony), Roman consul and triumvir. The opposite Cleopatra, if you’ll. Whereas significantly much less well-known than her notorious mom, she was arguably a extra profitable and finally simpler Roman shopper queen.
Cleopatra Selene was born in 40 BCE, within the wake of her dad and mom’ famend and fabled encounter within the metropolis of Tarsus, so memorably described by Antony’s biographer Plutarch, invoked by William Shakespeare, and painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. This meant that she was round 10 years outdated when the civil conflict between her father and his fellow triumvir Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (identified in the present day as Octavian, he would go on to grow to be the primary Roman emperor Augustus) culminated in Octavian’s victory over Antony and Cleopatra on the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, and his conquest and annexation of Egypt the next 12 months. After her dad and mom’ suicides, she was taken again to Rome by Octavian and spent the rest of her childhood within the family of his sister Octavia, who additionally occurred to be her father’s ex-wife and the mom of two of his daughters, Cleopatra Selene’s half-sisters.
Whereas Octavian’s biographer Suetonius claimed that he was a kindly father determine and reared her as rigorously as if she was his personal flesh and blood, there was undoubtedly a political dimension to this determination, and it was in all probability his foremost concern. Retaining management of Cleopatra Selene meant that any potential risk to Rome’s energy over Egypt was neutralised earlier than it might acquire any momentum. It could be inconceivable for anybody to try to put declare to Egypt whereas the final scion of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the true inheritor to the throne, was alive and nicely. However that isn’t to say that Octavian’s tenure as Cleopatra Selene’s guardian was completely benign.
Octavian pressured Cleopatra Selene to take part within the occasions of the third day of his Triple Triumph in the summertime of 29 BCE: this third and remaining day commemorated his conquest of Egypt and, within the absence of their mom, Cleopatra Selene and her twin brother Alexander Helios walked alongside an effigy of Cleopatra entwined with the snakes that had supposedly ended her life. Cleopatra Selene was dressed because the Moon and Alexander Helios because the Solar in reference to the celestial and divine names that Antony had bestowed upon them along with their extra prosaic Ptolemaic names that they shared with quite a few different members of the dynasty. This was undoubtedly Octavian’s try to make sure that the group of 1000’s lining the processional route would make sure to recognise them. Fortunately for them, in contrast to different enemies of Rome resembling Vercingetorix of Gaul, their participation in a army triumph didn’t culminate of their ritual execution.
Following the conclusion of the Triumph, what was Octavian to do with a princess whom he had ensured was not in possession of a kingdom? Octavian made certain that Antony’s different surviving youngsters had been raised as conventional Romans: his son by his third spouse Fulvia, Iullus Antonius, climbed the cursus honorum (‘ladder of workplaces’) and was ultimately elected consul, whereas his two daughters by his fourth spouse Octavia – Antonia Main and Antonia Minor – had been married to appropriate Roman males, and numbered amongst their descendants the overall Germanicus and the emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
However since Cleopatra Selene was the daughter of a international queen, had been declared Queen of Crete and the Cyrenaica in her personal proper by Antony on the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BCE, and will technically even be thought-about the rightful Queen of Egypt within the wake of her mom’s loss of life in 30 BCE, her scenario was not so easy. She was just too vital to be left alone as a hostage to fortune. A handy answer introduced itself within the type of one other of Octavian’s wards, a younger man named Gaius Julius Juba.
Like Cleopatra Selene, Juba was the final surviving member of a deposed North African royal household, whose kingdom had been seized by Rome and subsequently transformed right into a province. His father, Juba I, had been King of Numidia (fashionable Libya) however had chosen the incorrect aspect in a earlier Roman civil conflict, and, as with Cleopatra, he had died by suicide leaving his kingdom, his wealth, and his little one to be confiscated by Rome and repurposed. Like Cleopatra Selene, Juba had been displayed as booty in a army triumph, Julius Caesar’s Quadruple Triumph in 46 BCE. However in contrast to Cleopatra Selene, he had been an oblivious toddler on the time, main Caesar’s biographer Plutarch to explain him as ‘the happiest captive ever captured’.
On this marriage, it was the spouse quite than the husband who had the upper profile and better status
Juba had then been raised and educated as a Roman, changing into a formidable mental and polymath, authoring works on a wide range of totally different topics. It was advised that Octavia performed the position of matchmaker between her two North African foster youngsters, and the pair had been married in round 25 BCE, when Juba was in his early 20s and Cleopatra Selene was round 15 years outdated. As a marriage current, Octavian appointed them joint rulers of the newly created Roman shopper kingdom of Mauretania. Their union was commemorated in a poem composed by the Augustan courtroom poet Crinagoras of Mytilene, which emphasised the importance of this becoming a member of of two North African royal homes and contemplated its implications for the long run:
Nice bordering areas of the world which the complete stream of Nile separates from the black Aethiopians, you may have by marriage made your sovereigns widespread to each, turning Egypt and Libya into one nation. Could the youngsters of those princes ever once more rule with unshaken dominion over each lands.
Whereas there have been many Roman shopper kingdoms within the jap Mediterranean and the Close to and Center East, Mauretania was the one one within the west of the empire, and it was by far the most important. It was a land of abundance, blessed with appreciable pure sources that included not solely luxuries resembling purple dye, scented citron wooden and unique animals for the world resembling lions, but in addition staples resembling grain, fish and fish sauce. Its inhabitants was various and multicultural, made up of many alternative Indigenous teams which are in the present day referred to collectively as ‘Berbers’, however there have been additionally plenty of Greek and Roman colonies positioned alongside the Mediterranean littoral, and shut ties to the Roman province of Hispania Baetica throughout the Strait of Gibraltar. The southern borders weren’t so clearly outlined, resulting in common incursions by hostile native tribes, and Juba must spend a substantial quantity of his time on marketing campaign in opposition to them over the approaching a long time.
Having witnessed her mom rule Egypt, and seen the affect that Roman girls resembling Octavian’s sister Octavia and his spouse Livia might wield over their husbands and sons, it isn’t stunning that Cleopatra Selene was not content material to take a seat again and permit Juba to take the lead in what she thought-about to be their joint enterprise. Unusually for classical antiquity, on this marriage it was the spouse quite than the husband who had the upper profile and better status, as Cleopatra Selene might hint her lineage again to Philip II and Alexander III of Macedon (extra generally generally known as Alexander the Nice), and was not solely a member of the traditional Roman households the Antonii and the Julii (by her paternal grandmother Julia), however was additionally straight related to the imperial household by her two half-sisters, who had been Octavian’s nieces.
As beforehand acknowledged, Cleopatra Selene had been declared Queen of Crete and the Cyrenaica in her personal proper by her father within the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BCE, and, as the only surviving member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was technically Queen of Egypt as nicely. Consequently, the pair dominated collectively, with Cleopatra Selene’s status bolstering Juba’s authority. They renamed the Mauretanian capital metropolis Iol to Caesarea in honour of Octavian, and embarked upon a lavish constructing programme to make it a becoming seat for his or her fledgling dynasty. In doing so, they clearly took inspiration from Cleopatra Selene’s former dwelling of Alexandria, which was one of many most interesting cities within the historical Mediterranean. In time, Caesarea would grow to be a extremely refined and multicultural courtroom, populated by well-educated and prolific Greek, Roman, Egyptian and African students and gifted and inventive artisans, of whose actions a lot archaeological and epigraphic proof survives.
By far, a very powerful and informative proof for all of this exercise is the coinage. Numismatic proof might be tough: in contrast to fashionable cash, historical ones don’t all the time embody their date of concern and different extremely particular figuring out data on both the obverse or the reverse face. We additionally should not have data of the briefings given to the individuals accountable for designing and manufacturing the cash, and so have to try to make connections between the photographs and texts on the cash and what we all know of the historic, cultural and social circumstances underneath which they had been minted. So, the extra we learn about what was happening when the cash had been minted, the better it’s to decode them. However after we have no idea precisely what was happening when the cash had been minted, we have now to work more durable.
In contrast to Roman cash issued on the similar time, each husband and spouse seem on the Mauretanian ones, and Cleopatra Selene additionally issued her personal autonomous coinage, one thing that the Roman empresses weren’t in a position to do. In cash issued collectively, a portrait of Juba and the Latin legend REX IUBA (‘King Juba’) seems on one aspect, whereas a portrait of Cleopatra Selene and the Greek legend BASILISSA KLEOPATRA (‘Queen Cleopatra’) seems on the opposite. On one specific joint concern, minted in the course of the sixth 12 months of their reign, the couple celebrated their deceased royal dad and mom, depicting Juba on the obverse accompanied by the Latin legend REX IUBA REGIS IUBAE F (King Juba, son of King Juba), and Cleopatra Selene on the reverse, accompanied by the Greek legend BASI KLEO KLEOPA THUGA (Queen Cleopatra, daughter of [Queen] Cleopatra).
Whereas Juba’s contributions to the cash are pretty pedestrian, comprising an ordinary portrait of himself carrying a diadem, the image of his kingship, in profile accompanied by the Latin legend REX IUBA, ‘King Juba’, Cleopatra Selene’s are way more various and considerate, with lots of her contributions Egyptian-themed, and accompanied by the Greek legend BASILISSA KLEOPATRA, ‘Queen Cleopatra’.
On one concern, we see a portrait of her carrying a diadem and the Greek legend KLEOPATRA BASILISSA on the obverse face, and a crocodile and the Greek legend KLEOPATRA BASILISSA on the reverse, the crocodile being an animal significantly related to Egypt on this interval that had additionally beforehand appeared on the coinage issued in her title on Crete within the 30s BCE. On one other, we see an ibis attacking a snake, maybe a veiled reference to her mom’s loss of life and the mythology that had began to develop up round it in the course of the Augustan Principate. On a 3rd, we see the accoutrements of the goddess Isis, her mom’s favorite deity, her crown that includes the solar disk and cow horns and her sistrum atop the Greek legend KLEOPATRA, and on a fourth we see Isis’ crown atop a crescent moon, the image of the Greek goddess Selene, after whom Cleopatra Selene had been named, and the Greek legend KLEOPATRA BASILISSA.
Cleopatra Selene dominated alongside Juba as his equal, not as his subordinate
On a fifth coin, intriguingly, we see Isis’ crown surmounted by a crescent moon containing a globe, the image of the oikoumene, the ‘identified world’ or the ‘inhabited world’ in Greek and Roman eyes, accompanied by the Greek legend BASILISSA KLEOPATRA. Evidently Cleopatra Selene continued her mom’s patronage of that goddess. Every so often, Juba joined in and honoured his spouse’s heritage by changing his portrait with one of many ram’s-horned god Amun accompanied by the Latin legend REX IUBA, whereas Cleopatra Selene adopted in her mom’s footsteps by depicting herself within the guise of the goddess Isis accompanied by the Greek legend BASILISSA KLEOPATRA. Since a statue of Amun has been present in Iol Caesarea, it’s attainable that Juba went additional than merely depicting Amun on his coinage and truly introduced himself as a residing manifestation of him, with Cleopatra Selene presenting herself as Isis, simply as her dad and mom had introduced themselves as Hercules or Dionysos and Isis on quite a few ceremonial events. Maybe Cleopatra Selene was accountable for this suggestion, one thing that they might get away with so far-off from Octavian’s watchful eyes in Rome. Amun was a extremely appropriate alternative for Juba as he was king of the Egyptian pantheon, and sometimes equated with Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon, elsewhere within the historical Mediterranean. Certainly, Cleopatra Selene’s famend relative Alexander the Nice had claimed to be the son of Amun, and consequently he was usually depicted with the god’s ram’s horns by his normal Lysimachus who turned the King of Thrace after Alexander’s loss of life.
Moreover, Cleopatra Selene additionally issued her personal autonomous cash with no reference to Juba in any respect, and these are coated not solely with references to herself, resembling crescent moons, referring to her second title, but in addition Egyptian motifs, resembling crocodiles, ibises and the accoutrements of the goddess Isis. Her portraits point out that she adopted the instance set by her mom and introduced herself within the method of a Hellenistic queen, along with her hair styled within the ‘melon’ hairstyle and held in place by a diadem, the normal headwear of a Hellenistic king and, generally, even a queen.
Initially, a diadem was a strip of white fabric, knotted behind the wearer’s head, with the ends left dangling under. An alternate historical headdress that was used to point the elevated standing of its wearer was the stephane, a circlet with a pediment on the entrance that stood upright from the top. The early Ptolemaic queens who featured on cash, resembling Arsinoe II, had been depicted carrying the stephane topped by a veil quite than the diadem, indicative of their divine standing. Regardless of her identification with the goddess Isis, Cleopatra VII most popular to painting herself carrying the diadem, maybe meant to point her place as queen regnant quite than queen consort, and it appears that evidently Cleopatra Selene adopted her instance on this, emphasising that she dominated alongside Juba as his equal, not as his subordinate.
Cleopatra Selene and Juba dominated Mauretania collectively till Cleopatra Selene’s comparatively early loss of life, after which Juba dominated Mauretania at the side of their son Ptolemy (observe that, considerably unusually, his title was taken from his maternal quite than his paternal lineage). Though the exact date of Cleopatra Selene’s loss of life has not survived, a poem composed by Crinagoras of Mytilene commemorated the event, noting that it occurred fittingly at the side of a lunar eclipse:
The moon herself, rising at early eve, dimmed her mild, veiling her mourning in evening, as a result of she noticed her namesake, fairly Selene, taking place useless to murky Hades. On her she had bestowed the great thing about her mild, and along with her loss of life she mingled her personal darkness.
She was interred within the mausoleum that she and Juba constructed, the stays of which might nonetheless be seen close to Cherchell in Algeria in the present day. Sadly, its contents are lengthy gone, presumably looted many centuries in the past. Nevertheless, even after her loss of life she remained a major determine within the kingdom, and it was her coinage that facilitated this. A hoard of cash deposited in round 17 CE close to Tangier accommodates cash that may be dated to the interval 11-17 CE and contains these not solely issued by Cleopatra Selene and Juba collectively, but in addition these issued by Cleopatra Selene alone, indicating that her coinage was not taken out of circulation upon her loss of life and was nonetheless in use by her former topics for greater than a decade after her loss of life, enabling her husband and son to proceed benefitting from her lustre with a purpose to stabilise their joint reign.
