Æ27 - Valerian and Gallienus ϹΑΜΙΩΝ

Samos sat under the jurisdiction of the Milesian conventus — one of the administrative districts through which Rome organized judicial and civic life in Asia Minor. Local bronze issues like this one were struck by the city's own authority to fill a gap the imperial mint never bothered to address: small-denomination everyday exchange. The joint reign attribution to Valerian and Gallienus narrows the window to the years before Valerian's catastrophic capture by Shapur I at Edessa in 260 AD, an event that effectively ended co-rule and sent the western empire into a decade of fragmentation.