Æ29 - Commodus ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡ ΔΙΟΔΩΡΟΥ ΠΕΡΓΑΜΗΝ

The magistrate named in this coin's legend — Diodoros — served as strategos of Pergamon during the mid-180s, a period when Commodus was systematically dismantling the administrative conventions his father Marcus Aurelius had maintained. Civic bronze coinage under named local magistrates was a privilege jealously negotiated with Rome, and Pergamon, as capital of the conventus and seat of the imperial cult in Asia, had more leverage than most cities to sustain the practice. Diodoros's name appearing here is less honorific flourish than administrative record — these issues functioned partly as documentation of civic authority exercised under a specific tenure.