Æ33 - Trajan L ΙΖ

Year 17 of Trajan's reign coincided with his preparations for the Parthian War, and Alexandria's mint was running at high volume supplying coinage for a province that functioned as the empire's grain engine. Egyptian bronzes of this period are dated by regnal year rather than consular year, a bookkeeping habit inherited from Ptolemaic administrative practice that never fully gave way to Roman convention. The L ΙΖ notation — the Greek letter for "year" followed by 17 — is the only dating system the Alexandrian mint used throughout the imperial period.