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AR23 - Hadrian L Δ
| Issuer | Alexandria (Egypt) |
|---|---|
| Year | 119-120 |
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| Reference(s) | Dattari 1399; Emmett 839.4; Milne 745 |
| Obverse description | Laureate bust of Emperor Hadrian facing right, with drapery visible on the left shoulder. The effigy displays a characteristically Hadrianic portrait with short curled hair and beard. The encircling Greek legend reads ΑΥΤ ΚΑΙ ΤΡΑΙ ΑΔΡΙΑ ϹΕΒ, identifying the emperor by his titles. The portrait is rendered in the provincial Alexandrian style, slightly more schematic than Roman metropolitan coinage of the same period. |
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| Mintage | ND (119-120) |
| Additional information |
Year four of Hadrian's reign — the Δ in the date — fell during his early imperial consolidation, when he had just abandoned Trajan's Mesopotamian conquests and withdrawn to the Euphrates frontier. Alexandria's mint operated under Roman prefectural oversight but maintained its own dating system tied to the Egyptian regnal year, a bureaucratic holdover from Ptolemaic practice that Rome never bothered to dismantle. The billon tetradrachm series from this period varies considerably in actual silver content, with year-four pieces generally showing better fineness than later issues as the progressive debasement had not yet taken firm hold.