Æ26 - Elagabalus ϹΤΡ ΗΡΩΔΟΥ ΤΗΜΝΕΙΤΩΝ

Temnus was a minor Aeolian city that punched above its weight in the production of civic bronze during the Severan period, likely because the conventus system gave even small poleis access to Roman administrative sanction for local issues. The strategos Herodes named in the obverse legend was a civic magistrate responsible for overseeing the issue — a common enough arrangement, but one that makes die-linked specimens across different reigns useful for reconstructing the tenure and dating of individual officials.

Elagabalus's four-year reign generated an outsized volume of eastern provincial bronze relative to its brevity, partly because his Syrian origins made him a figure of genuine local prestige in Asia Minor.