Æ26 - Elagabalus ΑΥΤ Κ Μ ΑΥΡ ΑΝΤωΝΙΝΟϹ

Aradus was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the ancient world, an island settlement off the Syrian coast that had maintained its own civic coinage almost without interruption since the Seleucid period. When Elagabalus was proclaimed emperor by the legions at nearby Raphana in 218 AD — he was fourteen years old and had been serving as a priest of the sun god at Emesa — the city struck bronze issues almost immediately, reflecting both its proximity to the proclamation site and its long habit of civic autonomy in coinage.