Sestertius - Augustus C I P IIIIVIR

Iulia Pia Paterna was a Roman colony in Africa Proconsularis, almost certainly to be identified with Sicca Veneria — modern Le Kef in northwestern Tunisia — though the attribution has been contested in the literature. Colonial bronze issues of this kind were autonomous civic productions, struck under the authority of local magistrates rather than the imperial mint, which explains the quattuorviral legends. The IIIIVIR formula denotes the four magistrates responsible for the emission.

Augustus never standardized colonial bronze coinage across the western provinces; what survives is the product of individual cities exercising residual civic prerogatives. Weight variation across specimens of this type is considerable.