Æ16 - Hadrian ΟΚΤ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ ΟΥΑ ΑΝΕ

Colossae occupied an awkward position in Roman Phrygia — once a major city of the Achaemenid-era road network, it had been so thoroughly eclipsed by neighboring Laodicea and Hierapolis by the imperial period that Strabo could dismiss it as a small town. Local bronze coinage under Hadrian was almost certainly issued to facilitate civic transactions the larger regional centers had little interest in financing. The dedicatory formula referencing Apollo and the magistrate's name compressed into the legend suggests a relatively modest civic apparatus managing its own cult obligations.