Æ22 - Severus Alexander ΤΗΙΩΝ ΙΩΝΩΝ

Teos, a coastal Ionian city best known in antiquity as the birthplace of the lyric poet Anacreon, issued bronze coinage under Severus Alexander as part of the broader civic minting activity that flourished across the Smyrna conventus during the Severan period. The legend ΤΗΙΩΝ ΙΩΝΩΝ — "of the Teans, of the Ionians" — reflects the city's persistent claim to pan-Ionian prestige, a status it had been asserting on its coinage long before Alexander's reign.

Teos had earlier been home to one of the ancient world's most celebrated Dionysiac guilds, the Artists of Dionysus, whose presence gave the city outsized cultural influence relative to its modest political weight.