AR19 - Diocletian L Γ

Year three of Diocletian's reign in Egyptian reckoning corresponds to the period immediately following his Currency Reform of 296 AD — though this piece predates it. The reform would shortly render these billon tetradrachms obsolete, replacing the old Alexandrian coinage system with standardized imperial denominations. Egypt had maintained its own closed currency system since the Ptolemies, and Diocletian's decision to abolish it after roughly five centuries was administratively deliberate: it forced the province into the same monetary framework as the rest of the empire, eliminating a longstanding tool of fiscal autonomy.