Acrasus was a minor Lydian city whose civic coinage under the Severan dynasty leaned heavily on the authority of the local strategos — here, one Menander, whose name anchors the dating more precisely than the emperor's long reign allows. The office of strategos in Asia Minor's conventus cities carried administrative and ceremonial weight, and magistrates routinely paid for the privilege of having their names struck onto bronze issues, effectively subsidizing municipal coinage through personal expenditure.
Acrasus issues from this period are genuinely scarce in any collection. The city's output was modest and geographically contained, circulating within a narrow regional economy rather than across trade routes.
Acrasus was a minor Lydian city whose civic coinage under the Severan dynasty leaned heavily on the authority of the local strategos — here, one Menander, whose name anchors the dating more precisely than the emperor's long reign allows. The office of strategos in Asia Minor's conventus cities carried administrative and ceremonial weight, and magistrates routinely paid for the privilege of having their names struck onto bronze issues, effectively subsidizing municipal coinage through personal expenditure.
Acrasus issues from this period are genuinely scarce in any collection. The city's output was modest and geographically contained, circulating within a narrow regional economy rather than across trade routes.