Æ18 - Nero Antioch

Antioch was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire and served as the administrative capital of Syria, making its civic bronze issues politically charged in ways that small provincial mints rarely achieved. This piece dates to the very opening of Nero's reign, when the court of Burrus and Seneca was still managing imperial image-making with considerable care. Antiochene bronzes of this period circulated almost entirely within the Levantine commercial economy — they rarely traveled far, which partly explains why surviving examples tend to show concentrated, uneven wear rather than the smooth attrition of widely-traveled coinage.