Æ28 - Trajan ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ

Hierapolis in Phrygia sat at one of the ancient world's more geologically unstable addresses — the city was built directly over a hydrothermal field, and its hot springs fed a thriving textile and dyeing industry that made it wealthy enough to issue civic bronze with some regularity under imperial oversight. The conventus of Cibyra grouped several Phrygian and Lycian communities under a single Roman judicial circuit, and civic coinage from member cities during Trajan's reign reflects the administrative confidence of a province at peace.

The city struck under its own ethnic legend ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ throughout the imperial period, a practice Rome tolerated — even encouraged — as a means of maintaining local civic identity within the provincial system.