Æ26 - Septimius Severus ΚΩΙΩΝ ΑΡΧΗϹ ΜΕΝΕΚΡΑΤΟΥϹ

Cos, the small Aegean island best known in antiquity as the birthplace of Hippocrates, maintained its own civic bronze coinage under Roman rule through a system of local magistrates — the archon named in this legend, Menekrates, being one of the few whose name survives on datable material. The island sat within the conventus of Halicarnassus, an administrative grouping that gave its constituent communities the right to issue bronze for local exchange while Rome controlled the silver.

Septimius Severus visited the eastern Aegean region during his campaigns against Pescennius Niger in 193–194, a moment that likely prompted renewed civic coinage across several island communities eager to signal loyalty to the emerging dynasty.