Æ22 - Augustus BVTHR, QVIN (in exergue)

Buthrotum — modern Butrint in Albania — occupied an unusual position in the Roman colonial system. Julius Caesar designated it as a colony site, a plan Cicero famously and bitterly opposed in a letter to Atticus, arguing that displacing the existing Greek population was an act of political vandalism. Caesar's assassination stalled the project, but Augustus eventually established the colony, and this bronze issue belongs to that Augustan colonial settlement. The abbreviation QVIN in the exergue identifies the quinquennales, the senior colonial magistrates who held office in five-year cycles and held the right to authorize local coinage.