AR24 - Antoninus Pius L ΙΘ

Year 19 of Antoninus Pius's reign — 155/156 AD — falls squarely within the most stable stretch of Roman imperial rule Egypt would see for generations. Alexandria's billon tetradrachms from this period reflect the slow, deliberate degradation of silver content that had been ongoing since Nero's reforms of the Egyptian coinage in 64 AD, a process managed entirely within the closed currency system Rome imposed on the province, which prevented Egyptian coins from circulating outside its borders and outside coins from entering.

Dattari 2956 is among the better-documented die pairings for this regnal year.