Æ39 - Augustus EX D D COLONIAE IVLIAE PI PAT

The colony referenced in this coin's reverse legend — Colonia Iulia Pia Paterna — is identified with Sicca Veneria in Numidia, a site long associated with the cult of Venus and a Punic religious tradition that Roman colonization never fully displaced. The designation *Ex Decreto Decurionum* confirms the issue was authorized by the local senate of the colony rather than by imperial directive, placing civic minting authority squarely in the hands of Sicca's governing class during the early Augustan reorganization of North African territories.

At 39mm this is a substantial civic bronze — a deliberate statement of colonial weight and prestige in the first decade after Actium.