.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Mark Antony (Marcus Antoninus) was born to a patrician Roman family on 14 January circa 82 B.C. After a reckless youth in Rome, he fled to Greece to avoid his creditors. He was summoned east to take part in the campaign against Aristobulus II, where he distinguished himself as an able cavalry commander. In 54 B.C., Antony became a staff officer for Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars, with whom he was distantly related. Despite his personality quirks, he rose through the ranks, holding the offices of Quaestor, Augur, and Tribune. After Caesar's murder in 44 B.C., he formed a triumvirate with Caesar's adopted heir Octavian and Lepidus, and was charged with the reorganization of the eastern half of the Empire.
At Tarsus in Syria in 41 B.C. he met the young Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, and they wintered together in Egypt. The following year he returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia, but left her in 39 B.C. to continue his work in the east, where he renewed his relationship with Cleopatra. In 36 B.C. Lepidus was compelled to retire from the triumvirate, and Antony solidified his position in an expanding Egypt, which lead to open conflict with Octavian. The decisive battle took place at Actium in 31 B.C. in which Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, after which they fled to Egypt. He committed suicide in 30 B.C. before Octavian's army could enter Alexandria (see Richardson and Cadoux, "Antonius," in The Oxford Classical Dictionary).
The portrait of Mark Antony on the gem presented here faithfully replicates his likeness as seen on his coinage during the 30s B.C. (see pls. 130-135 in Vollenweider, Die Porträtgemmen der römischen Republik). Several other portraits gems are known in the same style, which were perhaps worn by his followers (see Vollenweider, op. cit., pl. 135,2). The style is still well within the Roman Republican tradition for accurate, even brutally-realistic representations. One portrait of him signed by the artist Gnaios, shows him in a more idealized fashion, and may have been a posthumous creation at the court of his daughter Cleopatra Selene and Juba II of Numidia (see no. 18 in Boardman, Engraved Gems, The Ionides Collection).
At Tarsus in Syria in 41 B.C. he met the young Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, and they wintered together in Egypt. The following year he returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia, but left her in 39 B.C. to continue his work in the east, where he renewed his relationship with Cleopatra. In 36 B.C. Lepidus was compelled to retire from the triumvirate, and Antony solidified his position in an expanding Egypt, which lead to open conflict with Octavian. The decisive battle took place at Actium in 31 B.C. in which Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, after which they fled to Egypt. He committed suicide in 30 B.C. before Octavian's army could enter Alexandria (see Richardson and Cadoux, "Antonius," in The Oxford Classical Dictionary).
The portrait of Mark Antony on the gem presented here faithfully replicates his likeness as seen on his coinage during the 30s B.C. (see pls. 130-135 in Vollenweider, Die Porträtgemmen der römischen Republik). Several other portraits gems are known in the same style, which were perhaps worn by his followers (see Vollenweider, op. cit., pl. 135,2). The style is still well within the Roman Republican tradition for accurate, even brutally-realistic representations. One portrait of him signed by the artist Gnaios, shows him in a more idealized fashion, and may have been a posthumous creation at the court of his daughter Cleopatra Selene and Juba II of Numidia (see no. 18 in Boardman, Engraved Gems, The Ionides Collection).