Argos maintained the right to strike civic bronze under the early Antonines largely through its status as one of the oldest and most symbolically loaded cities in Greece — a prestige the Romans found useful to honor even as the polis itself had been economically marginal for centuries. The ethnic ΑΡΓΕΙΩΝ on this issue is a deliberate assertion of civic identity, one Argos clung to with notable tenacity in its local coinage through the second century.
The reference IV.1#3454 places this within the RPC Online corpus for the period 161–169, the first years of Marcus Aurelius's sole reign before Lucius Verus's death in 169.
Argos maintained the right to strike civic bronze under the early Antonines largely through its status as one of the oldest and most symbolically loaded cities in Greece — a prestige the Romans found useful to honor even as the polis itself had been economically marginal for centuries. The ethnic ΑΡΓΕΙΩΝ on this issue is a deliberate assertion of civic identity, one Argos clung to with notable tenacity in its local coinage through the second century.
The reference IV.1#3454 places this within the RPC Online corpus for the period 161–169, the first years of Marcus Aurelius's sole reign before Lucius Verus's death in 169.