Æ20 - Augustus ΠΑΠΙΑΣ ΑΠΕΛΛΙΔΟΥ ΙΕΡΟΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ

This issue belongs to a civic bronze series struck under the magistrate Papias, son of Apellis — a local official whose name appears across several Hierapolitan emissions of the Augustan period, suggesting he held a recurring or senior civic minting role. Hierapolis sat within the Cibyra conventus, one of the judicial districts Rome used to administer Asia, and its bronze coinage at this period was entirely a local affair: Rome supplied no small change, so cities struck their own to keep markets functioning.

5 BC places this coin in the decade following Augustus's reorganization of the eastern provinces, when civic pride and Roman loyalty were frequently expressed through the medium of local bronze.