Æ20 - Commodus ΔΑΡΔΑΝΙωΝ

Dardanus was a small coastal city on the Asian shore of the Hellespont, strategically positioned near the narrows where the straits begin to widen toward the Propontis. Its civic coinage under Commodus dates to the very opening of his reign — the years immediately following Marcus Aurelius's death in March 180 — when provincial mints across the conventus of Adramyteum briefly asserted their issuing activity before the series petered out. Few cities in this conventus produced bronze with any regularity, and Dardanus is among the least prolific.