1/2 Siliqua - Justinian I Carthage, Monogram

Justinian's reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals in 533–534, executed by the general Belisarius, reopened Carthage as an active imperial mint for the first time in decades. The half siliqua issued from that workshop was a practical administrative tool — small silver fractions needed for local commerce in a province being rapidly reintegrated into the eastern fiscal system. Carthage would remain a functioning Byzantine mint until the Arab conquest in 698.