20 Nummi - Justinian I Carthage, S, Bust Facing

Carthage returned to imperial hands in 533 when Belisarius defeated the Vandal king Gelimer in a campaign of remarkable speed — the entire reconquest took under a year. Mint operations at Carthage resumed shortly after, but the early civic infrastructure was badly disrupted, and the coinage produced there through the late 530s and into the 540s reflects that instability in its irregular fabric and inconsistent module.

The Justinianic plague reached Constantinople in 541 and spread west through imperial territories within two years, collapsing tax revenues and straining the mint's output precisely within this coin's production window.