Æ28 - Valerian and Gallienus ϹΤ ΑΥ ΕΛΠΙΔΗΦΟΡΟΥ Β ΚΥΜΑΙ

Cyme, one of the oldest Aeolian settlements on the western Anatolian coast, retained the right to strike civic bronze under Roman rule well into the third century. The co-regency of Valerian and Gallienus — father and son ruling jointly after 253 — prompted many cities in the Smyrna conventus to issue coins honoring both emperors simultaneously, a deliberate display of dynastic continuity at a moment when the empire was fracturing under plague, invasion, and internal revolt. The magistrate name preserved in this issue, Elpidephoros, ties the coin to a specific administrative moment otherwise lost to the record.