AR24 - Antoninus Pius Μ ΑΥΡΗ ΚΑΙϹΑΡ L Ε

Year 5 of Antoninus Pius's reign — rendered on Alexandrian coinage as L Ε — places this issue in 141/142 AD, the same year Antoninus secured the deification of his adoptive predecessor Hadrian after initial senatorial resistance. The Alexandria mint operated under the prefect of Egypt as a closed currency system; these billon tetradrachms could not legally circulate outside Egypt's borders, feeding a monetized provincial economy that ran parallel to, but largely separate from, the wider imperial coinage network.