Æ22 - Severus Alexander ϹΚΑΜΑΝΔΡΟϹ ΙΛΙΕΩΝ

Ilium — the Roman city built over the ruins of Troy — leveraged its mythological identity aggressively under the Severan dynasty, issuing civic bronzes that advertised the city's claim as the ancestral home of Rome itself. The Scamander river, sacred in the Homeric tradition as a divine ally of the Trojans during the siege, was a particularly pointed choice of reverse type for a city marketing its antiquity to an emperor who needed legitimacy. Caracalla had visited Ilium in 214 AD, performing rites at the tomb of Achilles — civic mints in the region remembered such imperial attentions and worked hard to sustain them.