Æ21 - Marcus Aurelius ΕΠΙ ΘΕΜΙϹΤΟΚΛΕΟΥϹ ΜΙΛΗϹΙΩΝ

Miletus by the mid-second century AD was a city coasting on a glorious past — its Classical-era dominance in trade and colonization long over, its role reduced to that of a provincial administrative center under Rome. Civic bronze issues like this one were struck not by imperial authority but by the city itself, under the supervision of a local magistrate whose name the coin preserves. Themistokles, named here in the genitive as issuing authority, was one of hundreds of such magistrates whose identities survive only because a city chose to advertise them on small bronze for local exchange.