Rhesaena sat on the Khabur River in northwestern Mesopotamia, a city that changed hands repeatedly between Rome and Parthia before Septimius Severus secured it definitively for Rome around 197 AD. Its colonial status — reflected in the ΣΕΠ ΚΟΛ abbreviation honoring its Severan foundation — gave it the right to strike civic bronze, a privilege that ended with the wider collapse of provincial coinage under Gallienus. Decius's reign coincides almost exactly with the city's final attested issues, making this among the last coins Rhesaena ever produced.
Rhesaena sat on the Khabur River in northwestern Mesopotamia, a city that changed hands repeatedly between Rome and Parthia before Septimius Severus secured it definitively for Rome around 197 AD. Its colonial status — reflected in the ΣΕΠ ΚΟΛ abbreviation honoring its Severan foundation — gave it the right to strike civic bronze, a privilege that ended with the wider collapse of provincial coinage under Gallienus. Decius's reign coincides almost exactly with the city's final attested issues, making this among the last coins Rhesaena ever produced.