Ios was a minor Cycladic island with a mint active only sporadically under the Antonines, and civic bronzes naming local magistrates or ethnic legends from this period are rare enough that the RPC IV.2 corpus lists very few confirmed specimens. This piece belongs to a narrow window when provincial civic minting under Faustina II — struck in her name as Augusta following Marcus Aurelius's accession in 161 — was politically encouraged across the Greek east as a gesture of dynastic loyalty to the new joint reign.
Ios was a minor Cycladic island with a mint active only sporadically under the Antonines, and civic bronzes naming local magistrates or ethnic legends from this period are rare enough that the RPC IV.2 corpus lists very few confirmed specimens. This piece belongs to a narrow window when provincial civic minting under Faustina II — struck in her name as Augusta following Marcus Aurelius's accession in 161 — was politically encouraged across the Greek east as a gesture of dynastic loyalty to the new joint reign.