Æ23 - Gordian III ΜΗΤΡ ΚΟΛ ΚΑΡΡΗΝωΝ

Carrhae's coinage under Gordian III falls in the shadow of the emperor's Persian campaign — the city sat directly on the eastern supply corridor as Roman forces pushed toward Ctesiphon in 243 AD. Gordian never made it back; he died in early 244, under circumstances disputed since antiquity, with Philip the Arab almost certainly implicated. The colonial title ΜΗΤΡ ΚΟΛ on the legend reflects the Severan grant of metropolis status, a designation the city's mint leveraged aggressively on its bronze issues during precisely these final campaign years.