Æ27 - Marcus Aurelius PoPVL CoL COR

Corinth's colonial coinage under Marcus Aurelius reflects the city's unusual status as a Roman colonia planted on the ruins of the Greek polis destroyed by Mummius in 146 BC — a Latin-charter city sitting in the heart of Greece, which explains the POPVL COL COR legend asserting the authority of the colonial people rather than the emperor alone. The colony had been refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and its civic coinage consistently emphasized Roman identity with a deliberateness that distinguished it sharply from the Greek imperial bronzes struck elsewhere in Achaea.