Tetradrachm - Diocletianus Athena

By 287–288, the Alexandrian tetradrachm had been so thoroughly debased that billon in name was silver in little more than memory — bronze content dominated, with silver reduced to a surface wash at best. Diocletian would address this collapse head-on with his currency reforms of 294–296, which effectively killed the Alexandrian tetradrachm series entirely after three centuries of continuous production. This piece dates to just a few years before that termination.