Æ26 - Gallienus sole reign) (ΑΦΡΟΔΙϹΙΑΙΩΝ (sic)

Aphrodisias occupied a privileged position in Roman Asia Minor, having received a formal grant of freedom and tax immunity — confirmed repeatedly by successive emperors — owing largely to the city's powerful cult of Aphrodite and its unusually well-connected civic elite. Bronze issues under Gallienus's sole reign followed the death of his father Valerian, captured by Shapur I of Persia in 260 AD, the only Roman emperor ever taken prisoner by a foreign enemy. The misspelled ethnic legend ΑΦΡΟΔΙϹΙΑΙΩΝ, rather than the correct ΑΦΡΟΔΕΙϹΙΕΩΝ, points to a local engraver working without close editorial oversight.