AR25 - Caracalla L ΚΒ

Year 22 of Caracalla's reign in Egypt — 213/214 AD — falls squarely in the period before his catastrophic visit to Alexandria in 215, when he ordered a massacre of the city's young men after its inhabitants mocked him with satirical comparisons to Achilles and his treatment of Patroclus. The Alexandrian mint had been producing tetradrachms continuously under Roman rule since Augustus reformed Egyptian coinage, keeping the province on a closed currency system that prevented silver from leaking out of the empire's most productive grain supplier.