Æ27 - Trajan Decius ϹΕΠ ΡΗϹΑΙΝΗϹΙωΝ L III P

Rhesaena was a Severan foundation in northern Mesopotamia — the city's very name preserves the Severan claim, and its civic coinage was struck only under a handful of emperors before the region fell permanently into the contested borderlands between Rome and Sasanian Persia. The L III in this issue's legend marks the third year of a local civic era, a dating convention that helps narrow otherwise ambiguous provincial issues to specific administrative moments.

Trajan Decius ruled barely two years before dying at Abrittus in 251, the first Roman emperor killed in battle against a foreign enemy.