AR23 - Marcus Aurelius L Ζ

Year seven of Marcus Aurelius's reign coincided with the final stages of the Parthian War, which ended in Roman victory but brought catastrophic consequence: returning troops carried the Antonine Plague westward, killing an estimated five million people across the empire. Egypt, a closed monetary system requiring travelers to exchange foreign coin at the border, was not spared. Alexandrian tetradrachm production continued through the outbreak, but the billon alloy had been quietly debased across preceding decades — by this point silver content was a fraction of what Ptolemaic issues once carried.