Æ23 - Trajan ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ

Laodicea ad Lycum had every reason to court imperial favor under Trajan. The city had rebuilt itself substantially after the catastrophic earthquake of 60 AD — largely without Roman financial assistance, a point of civic pride recorded by Tacitus — and by the early second century it was one of the wealthiest cities in the Conventus of Cibyra, drawing income from wool, banking, and the road network converging there from the Lycus valley. Provincial bronzes of 116–117 are particularly compressed into a narrow window: Trajan died in August 117, making any issue dateable to his final year a product of a mint working without knowledge of how little time remained.