AR23 - Antoninus Pius L ΙΔ

Year 14 of Antoninus Pius's reign, which this coin's regnal date confirms, fell during one of the more administratively stable stretches of the entire Principate — a fact that makes Alexandrian tetradrachms from this period abundant relative to issues struck under more turbulent reigns. The Alexandria mint operated under Roman prefectural oversight but retained its own dating system, issuing in regnal years rather than consular ones, which is why these billon tetradrachms form such a reliable chronological sequence for numismatists working the second century.

The billon content by this period had already degraded noticeably from the near-pure silver of earlier Ptolemaic coinage, a deliberate Roman policy keeping Egyptian currency inconvertible outside the province.