Nummus - Arcadius GLORIA ROMANORVM, Antioch

Antioch's mint was one of the most politically sensitive production centers in the late empire — positioned near the Persian frontier and periodically caught between usurpers and legitimate claimants. The GLORIA ROMANORVM type was introduced under Gratian following the catastrophe at Adrianople in 378, where Valens died and the Gothic crisis fundamentally destabilized the eastern court. Arcadius, elevated to co-emperor in January 383 at roughly five years old, lent his name to coinage he had no comprehension of. RIC IX 41a places this piece in the Antioch mint's second officina sequence for this reign.