Thursday, February 15, 2007
Antony and Cleopatra
I was going to blog about this news story, and point out that coins with this sort of depiction of Antony and Cleopatra have been around for years (there's one which, if not struck from the same dies as the Newcastle example, is certainly struck from dies made to the same design, illustrated in the Roman history text book I used as an undergraduate in the mid-80s), so the difference between ancient and modern portrayals of Cleopatra is not exactly 'news' - but then Mary Beard beat me to it.
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Antonia Fraser said the same thing in 'The Warrior Queens' in 1988, which was illustrated with a coin that (to my untrained eye) looks very similar to the Newcastle one. And arguably Shakespeare had the same idea when he referred to "infinite variety" rather than looks. It must have been a really slow news day.
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