Æ21 - Gallienus sole reign) (ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΝ

Athens struck bronze coinage under the authority of the Roman provincial administration throughout the imperial period, but the issues of Gallienus's sole reign — after his co-emperor and father Valerian I was captured by Shapur I of Persia in 260 AD — carry particular historical weight. That capture, the first time a sitting Roman emperor had been taken prisoner by a foreign power, destabilized imperial finances and provincial minting in ways still debated by scholars. The Athenian civic series continued regardless, a local institution grinding on through the chaos of the Crisis of the Third Century.