Æ26 - Marcus Aurelius ΕΠΙ ΘΕΜΙϹΤΟΚΛΕΟΥϹ ΜΙΛΗϹΙ(ΩΝ)

Miletus had been in slow decline for centuries by the time this coin was struck — the harbor that made it the greatest trading city of the archaic Greek world had silted up almost completely, reducing the city to a provincial backwater reliant on Roman administrative favor. The magistrate name ΕΠΙ ΘΕΜΙϹΤΟΚΛΕΟΥϹ identifies this as an eponymous civic issue, a practice Miletus maintained long after it served any practical monetary purpose, more a gesture toward Hellenic tradition than civic necessity.

The dating to 161–169 places this squarely within the co-reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, a period when Asia Minor civic bronzes proliferated sharply as Roman military expenditure in the Parthian east pushed coined money through the region.