AR20 - Diocletian L Γ

This piece belongs to Diocletian's third regnal year in the Alexandrian dating system, struck just as he was consolidating power following the chaotic third-century crisis and the brief usurpations that preceded his reign. Alexandria's mint was among the last in the Roman world to abandon the ancient tradition of provincial coinage, producing its own billon tetradrachms with local dating conventions — the L Γ denoting year three — until Diocletian himself terminated the series in 296/297 AD with his currency reform, which standardized coinage across the empire and ended nearly 250 years of Alexandrian civic minting.