Antoninus Pius assumed power in July 138 AD following Hadrian's death, and Alexandria's mint moved quickly — this issue belongs to his very first regnal year, Year 1 by the Alexandrian calendar. Egyptian civic bronzes of this size and period were workhorses of small transactions in a province Rome administered with unusual bureaucratic intensity, its grain surplus too strategically vital to leave local monetary supply to chance.
Antoninus Pius assumed power in July 138 AD following Hadrian's death, and Alexandria's mint moved quickly — this issue belongs to his very first regnal year, Year 1 by the Alexandrian calendar. Egyptian civic bronzes of this size and period were workhorses of small transactions in a province Rome administered with unusual bureaucratic intensity, its grain surplus too strategically vital to leave local monetary supply to chance.