Æ23 - Severus Alexander ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ

Metropolis in Ionia was a minor city whose civic coinage under Severus Alexander was produced almost entirely to assert local prestige within the competitive hierarchy of Ionian poleis — the right to strike bronze being itself a form of status negotiated with Rome. The ethnic ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ is the city's entire claim to visibility in the numismatic record; relatively few types are attributed to this mint, and die links across the series suggest a modest, possibly intermittent, production run.