AR24 - Antoninus Pius ΕΤΟΥϹ Β

Struck in regnal year 2 of Antoninus Pius — the Egyptian calendar year beginning in the summer of 138 — this piece was minted within months of Hadrian's death and the Alexandrian mint's formal acknowledgment of the new emperor. The transition was unusually smooth by imperial standards; Hadrian had adopted Antoninus precisely to ensure stability, and the Alexandria mint wasted no time aligning its output accordingly.

Alexandrian billon coinage of this period was fiduciary in nature, its silver content already well below that of the imperial denarius, and it circulated exclusively within Egypt under Roman monetary policy that kept provincial issues confined to their region of issue.