Semis CES CAR

Carteia, on the Bay of Gibraltar, holds a specific distinction in Roman colonial history: it was the first Roman colony established outside Italy, founded in 171 BC to legitimize the mixed-born children of Roman soldiers and Iberian women. The coins it produced occupy an unusual space — neither fully Roman in administrative character nor purely Iberian — reflecting a community that had to negotiate its own civic identity from the outset.

The semis denomination here places this piece within Carteia's later bronze output, when the colony's mint was serving a local economy increasingly integrated into Baetica's broader commercial networks ahead of the Social War disruptions.