Æ18 - Severus Alexander ΑΒΥΔΗΝΩΝ

Abydus, positioned at the narrowest point of the Hellespont, controlled the crossing between Europe and Asia for centuries — a strategic chokepoint that made the city wealthy enough to maintain active civic bronze coinage well into the third century. Under Severus Alexander the municipal mints of the Adramyteum conventus continued issuing small bronzes as a matter of local commercial necessity, Roman provincial silver being too valuable for everyday transactions at the market level.