Æ22 - Antoninus Pius ΕΠΙ ΑΦ ΚοΡΝΗΛΙΑΝοΥ ΦΙΛΑΔΕΛΦΕΩΝ

Philadelphia in Lydia owed its name to Attalus II of Pergamon, who founded the city in the second century BC as a base for spreading Greek culture eastward — a mission the city took seriously enough that it remained one of the last holdouts of Greek paganism well into the Christian era. Under Antoninus Pius, Lydian civic bronzes like this one were produced under the authority of a local magistrate, here Aphrodisios Kornēlianos, whose name dominates the reverse legend. These magistrate-attributed issues are the primary tool for establishing relative chronology within the reign, since imperial coinage from Rome gives no guidance on provincial civic output.