AR24 - Trajan L ΙΗ

Year 18 of Trajan's reign coincided with his final and most ambitious military campaign — the invasion of Parthia, launched in 114 AD with the goal of pushing Rome's eastern frontier beyond the Euphrates. Alexandria's mint was producing coinage under the distinctive Egyptian regnal dating system while the emperor himself was thousands of miles away campaigning toward Mesopotamia. Trajan would never return to Rome; he died in Cilicia in 117 AD before the eastern conquests could be consolidated.

Alexandrian tetradrachms of this period are billon in most reigns, but silver-heavy issues do appear in the early second century before progressive debasement took hold under later emperors.