Two Antioch Issues from Artistic Dies

CNG 108, Lot: 462. Estimate $20000. Sold for $15000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUCIS and PIERIA, Antioch. Mark Antony & Cleopatra. Circa 36-34 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 13.75 g, 12h). BACIΛICCA KΛЄOΠATPA ΘЄA NЄωTЄPA, diademed bust of Cleopatra right, wearing earring, necklace, and embroidered dress / ANTωNIOC AVTOKPATωP TRITON TPIωN ANΔPωN, bare head of Antony right. McAlee 174; Prieur 27; BMC 53; RPC I 4094; HGC 9, 1361. Good VF, toned, granular surfaces. Exceptional strike.

The obverse legend is usually translated as “Queen Cleopatra, the younger goddess” or “...the newer goddess.” Ted Buttrey (“Thea Neotera,” MN VI [1954], pp. 95-109) read the legend rather differently: “Queen Cleopatra Thea, junior.” Essentially, this would make her Cleopatra Thea II and thus the namesake of the Seleucid queen Cleopatra Thea (ruled 125-121 BC), the daughter of Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II. Buttrey argued that such tetradrachms of Antony and Cleopatra officially mark Cleopatra as reigning “not as Egyptian conquerer but as a Seleucid queen.”