Dupondius - Tiberius TI CAESAR AVGVSTVS, Syrtica, Oea

Oea — modern Tripoli — was one of three Phoenician foundation cities of the Syrtican coast, and its civic bronze coinage under Tiberius reflects the city's awkward position: nominally Roman, administratively Carthaginian in tradition, and culturally still Punic in ways that Roman overlords tolerated rather than erased. The RPC I 834 attribution places this among a small cluster of provincial issues that use Tiberius's imperial titulature while retaining local weight standards and mint practices with no direct Roman supervision.

The "var." notation against GICV 298 is worth attention — minor die variants within this Oean series are documented but not fully catalogued, and individual specimens frequently diverge from the published type in small epigraphic details.