Year 18 of Antoninus Pius's reign corresponded to a period of relative stability in Egypt, though the province had only recently recovered from the catastrophic Jewish revolt of 115–117 AD under Trajan, which had devastated Alexandria's population and infrastructure so thoroughly that Hadrian effectively refounded the city's civic institutions. Alexandrian billon tetradrachms of this reign are among the better-documented provincial issues, with Emmett's cataloguing providing a reasonably complete die sequence through the regnal years.
The billon content by this period had declined noticeably from earlier imperial standards — a quiet fiscal adjustment that Roman administrators in Egypt managed independently of the metropolitan coinage system.
Year 18 of Antoninus Pius's reign corresponded to a period of relative stability in Egypt, though the province had only recently recovered from the catastrophic Jewish revolt of 115–117 AD under Trajan, which had devastated Alexandria's population and infrastructure so thoroughly that Hadrian effectively refounded the city's civic institutions. Alexandrian billon tetradrachms of this reign are among the better-documented provincial issues, with Emmett's cataloguing providing a reasonably complete die sequence through the regnal years.
The billon content by this period had declined noticeably from earlier imperial standards — a quiet fiscal adjustment that Roman administrators in Egypt managed independently of the metropolitan coinage system.