Quadrans - Hadrian MET/•/NOR

Hadrian's quadrans issues of the early 120s are among the more enigmatic small bronzes of the high imperial period — struck in Rome yet circulating almost exclusively in the provinces, where the shortage of fractional coinage was chronic. The MET/•/NOR reverse type is conventionally read as a reference to the metator, a surveyor or land-measurer, possibly linked to Hadrian's known preoccupation with infrastructure and provincial reorganization during his early reign tours.

Quadrantes of this period saw very limited use in Italy itself. Most excavated examples come from Danubian and northwestern provincial contexts.