AR22 - Antoninus Pius L ΙϚ

Year 16 of Antoninus Pius's reign fell squarely within the most stable stretch of Roman imperial governance Egypt would see for generations. The Alexandria mint operated under strict prefectural oversight, and its billon tetradrachms — debased well below classical silver standards by this period — functioned as a closed currency system: legal tender within Egypt, worthless outside it. Roman soldiers posted to the province were paid partly in this coinage and could not easily export value when transferred.

The Dattari reference traces to the collection catalogued by Giovanni Dattari in early 20th-century Cairo, still the foundational corpus for Alexandrian imperial issues.