Æ

Seleukeia ad Calycadnum — to distinguish it from the dozen-odd other cities claiming the Seleukid dynastic name — sat at a strategic crossing of the Calycadnus River in rough Cilicia Tracheia, a region Rome never fully pacified until Augustus reorganized the eastern provinces after Actium. The city struck bronze autonomously through most of this period, even as the surrounding territory changed hands between Seleukid governors, Armenian kings under Tigranes, and eventually Roman client rulers. Its civic coinage persisted largely uninterrupted, a function of local commercial need rather than political stability.