Æ34 - Trajan L ΙΗ

Year 18 of Trajan's reign coincided with his Parthian campaign, the most ambitious Roman military operation since Augustus — and the last time Rome would ever hold Mesopotamia. Alexandria's mint was unusually productive during these eastern war years, supplying bronze coinage for a province whose economy ran almost entirely on locally-struck, non-transferable currency. Alexandrian bronzes did not circulate outside Egypt; a soldier paid in these coins on the Nile was effectively tethered to the province's own monetary ecosystem.

The regnal year date, LΙΗ, places this piece precisely in 114–115 AD, just before Trajan's health began its terminal decline on the return march.