AR24 - Hadrian L Β

Year two of Hadrian's reign in Alexandria corresponds to one of the most politically charged transitions in Roman imperial history. Trajan died in August 117 AD without a formally announced heir, and Hadrian's accession — announced by Trajan's wife Plotina under circumstances widely suspected as fraudulent — was immediately contested in Rome. Egypt, however, fell quickly into line; the Alexandria mint resumed dated regal coinage under the new emperor within weeks, making these early Hadrianic tetradrachms among the first physical declarations of his legitimacy anywhere in the empire.