Æ33 - Marcus Aurelius L ΙΒ

Year 12 of Marcus Aurelius's reign — the regnal year encoded in that lambda-iota date — coincided almost exactly with the Roman counteroffensive against Marcomanni and Quadi pressing across the Danube. Alexandria's mint continued producing dated bronzes through these years with little interruption, its output tied to Egypt's closed currency system, which forced all incoming silver to be restruck as debased local tetradrachms and left the bronze denominations to handle everyday transactions in the province.

The L ΙΒ dating convention is the cleaner way to pin this piece: regnal year 12 ran from late summer 171 to late summer 172 by the Egyptian calendar.