Æ21 - Philip I ΑΡΧ ϹΕΥΗΡΟ ΑΔΡΙ

Hadrianopolis in Phrygia — not to be confused with the better-known Thracian city — was a minor settlement that owed its very name to the emperor Hadrian's aggressive policy of urban foundation across Asia Minor in the early second century. By Philip I's reign a century later, such Phrygian civic mints were operating on borrowed time; the monetary chaos of the mid-third century and successive military crises would effectively kill off most provincial bronze coinage within a generation. The archon name ϹΕΥΗΡΟ ΑΔΡΙ preserved in the legend is the primary dating anchor for this issue.