Æ20 - Trajan L Β

Trajan's second regnal year in Egypt — marked here by the L Β date formula — fell within months of his accession following Nerva's death in January 98. Egypt operated under a distinct dating system tied to the imperial regnal count rather than the Roman consular calendar, a administrative holdover from Ptolemaic practice that the Roman prefects never bothered to dismantle. Alexandrian bronzes of this early Trajanic period circulated almost exclusively within Egypt; export was legally restricted, and pieces found outside the Nile valley are genuinely anomalous.