Æ20 - Gordian III ΟΔΗϹϹΕΙΤΩΝ

Odessos, on the Black Sea coast of modern Bulgaria, was a Milesian foundation that retained its Greek civic identity well into the Roman imperial period. Under Gordian III, the city's bronze coinage was produced autonomously through local magistrates — a privilege that survived in Moesian cities longer than in many western provinces, where civic bronze had already been suppressed. The reign of Gordian III represents one of the last phases of this provincial civic coinage tradition; the reforms under Diocletian decades later would end it entirely.