AR18 - Diocletian L Β

Year 2 of Diocletian's reign as counted by the Alexandrian calendar ran through 285–286 AD, but the regnal year marked ΛΒ — year 32 — places this piece squarely in 293–294, the very moment Diocletian restructured imperial authority by appointing Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius as co-rulers, inaugurating the Tetrarchy. Alexandria's mint was among the most prolific producers of the post-reform billon tetradrachm, a denomination that had been debased so aggressively over the preceding decades that by this point the silver content was negligible. The Egyptian tetradrachm series ended entirely just two years later, in 296–297, when Diocletian's currency reforms forcibly integrated Egypt into the imperial monetary system for the first time.