Æ34 - Antoninus Pius L Β

This piece belongs to the first regnal year of Antoninus Pius, dated by the LB (year 2) notation to 138–139 AD — the transitional moment when Antoninus had just secured his position by fulfilling Hadrian's demand that he in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The Alexandrian mint, operating under the Roman prefect of Egypt, functioned as an entirely closed currency system: coins struck there could not legally circulate elsewhere in the empire, and foreign coins could not enter Egypt without being melted and reissued.

The reference IV.4#97 places this within Dattari-Savio's classification of Alexandrian bronzes, a catalog whose physical rarity now makes attribution of unlisted varieties genuinely difficult.