TRAJAN. 98-117 AD. Æ Quadrans (16mm, 3.23 gm). Dardanian mines issue, struck before 103 AD. IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG, laureate head right / DARDANICI, woman (Pax?) standing left, holding grain ears. RIC II 704; Simic & Vasic 4; BMCRE 1107; Cohen 139. VF, dark green patina. Rare.
Under Trajan and Hadrian several series of bronze quadrantes were struck in the name of the imperial mines in Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia and Moesia (Dardania). These operations supplied metal for the mint at Rome, and perhaps were the sites of workshops to produce coinage for local circulation or as donatives. Others theorize that these pieces were struck at Rome itself, and served some unidentified function, much as the contemporary "nome" coinage struck at Alexandria in Egypt. Whatever the circumstances, these pieces saw limited use, and, except for one rare type struck by Marcus Aurelius, were not issued at any other period.
The region of mining activity named on the reverse is Dardania, a district of Moesia Superior to the north of the Roman colony of Scupi. Mattingly (in BMCRE p. cix, note 1) mentions that "Trajan's 'Dardanici' coins belong to the silver mines of Kopaonik and Pristina in Serbia and old Serbia."
