Æ33 - Marcus Aurelius L Ζ

Year 7 of Marcus Aurelius at Alexandria coincides almost exactly with the return of Lucius Verus's army from the Parthian campaigns — troops who brought back the Antonine Plague, which tore through Egypt with particular severity. The Alexandria mint continued striking through the outbreak, making issues from this narrow window unwitting contemporaries of one of the ancient world's most catastrophic pandemics.

Alexandrian bronzes of this size were produced for local Egyptian circulation only, never accepted outside the province under Rome's closed currency system.