Augustan propaganda conjured up Cleopatra as a threatening female outsider. This lecture brings the evidence of the coinage into the discussion of Cleopatra’s pearls, part of her self-representation as a powerful monarch. Her images were interpreted not only as markers of a woman who lavished attention on a luxurious lifestyle but one of threatening female sexuality. Tracking the iconography of Cleopatra and of defeated Egypt allows us to evaluate their Roman and Mediterranean associations in a medium of mass communication and so to see more clearly the Augustan claims about women and empire.
William E. Metcalf Lectures in Numismatics
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