Alexandrian bronze coins of Cleopatra VII and Augustus found in Ptolemais, Cyrenaica, Archeologia 60, 2009 (2011), p. 27-34 (original) (raw)

The deep need of bronze coins (especially petty denominations), characteristic of the cities of the Libyan Pentapolis, is a common trait shared by the overwhelming majority of urban areas during the late Republic and early Empire. The demand for bronze coinage in the first decades of the Roman Empire made the Cyrenaican monetary system considerably receptive and flexible. It is in this context that the author proposes to interpret the Cyrenaican finds of bronze coins of Cleopatra VII and Augustus struck in Alexandria, among which eight were found in Ptolemais. The influx of Alexandrian bronzes to the cities of the Libyan Pentapolis seems to be connected with the presence of the Roman army in Cyrenaica under Augustus and Tiberius, especially with the legio III Cyrenaica which presumably had come from Egypt during the Marmaric war.