Post your "well-known" Ancient Coins

It’s not from Amisos, but y’all get the point

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Two iconic coins that need little to no introduction.

 

Hi @CoinBlazer - while this coin is only a small nugget (2.29g, 14mm), doesn't have a portrait of the famous queen that issued it, and is well worn, I think it should meet your OP criteria. Who wouldn't recognize Cleopatra, the last ruler of Egypt before it became a Roman province? Famous for her wit, leadership, beauty, and romantic engagements with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She had a child with Julius Caesar and three with Mark Antony. There is also the drama of her final scene of the 31 BC Battle at Actium.


Cleopatra VII, 51-30BC
Obv: Laureate head of Zeus to right
Rev: Zeus standing head to right, holding ears of corn on single stalk

Plutarch writes of her in "The Parallel Lives", Vol IX 27.2-3
"For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but to converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behavior towards others, had something stimulating about it. There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians."