Æ19 - Marcus Aurelius ΕΚΤΩΡ ΙΛΙΕΩΝ

Ilium — the Roman city built over the ruins of Troy — traded heavily on its mythological identity throughout the imperial period, styling itself the living heir to Homeric epic. This bronze was struck during the co-rule of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, a period when the city actively cultivated imperial favor by emphasizing its Trojan ancestry, which Roman tradition held as the origin point of Rome itself through Aeneas.

The reference to Hector on a civic bronze is a pointed piece of civic propaganda — no other city could claim him as a local hero with any geographic legitimacy.