Æ25 - Commodus ϹΤΡ ΚΛ ϹΤΡΑΤΟΝΕΙΚΙΑΝΟΥ ϹΜΥΡΝΑΙ

Smyrna was one of the most aggressively self-promoting cities in the Roman province of Asia, having fought hard against Ephesus and Pergamon for the title of "First City of Asia" — a competition that played out not in war but in honorific inscriptions, imperial flattery, and civic coinage. The strategos named in this issue, Cl. Stratoneikeanos, represents the local magistracy responsible for authorizing the bronze civic series during the middle reign of Commodus, a period when the emperor's increasingly erratic demands for divine honors created awkward obligations for provincial mint authorities navigating loyalty and local pride simultaneously.