AR25 - Nerva L Α

Nerva's first Alexandrian regnal year — his only one, as he died in January 98 — coincided with a regime anxious to assert legitimacy after the assassination of Domitian. The Egyptian mint at Alexandria operated under Roman imperial authority but maintained its own dating system tied to Egyptian regnal years, making this a L Α ("year one") piece that could only have been struck in a window of roughly twelve months. Alexandria's billon tetradrachms circulated almost exclusively within Egypt, where Roman silver was deliberately excluded to keep the provincial currency isolated and controllable.