Æ29 - Trajan Decius ΑΦΡΟΔΕΙϹΙΕΩΝ, Α

Aphrodisias, named for Aphrodite and home to one of her most celebrated cult sanctuaries in the eastern Mediterranean, held civic pride in its divine patronage with unusual tenacity. The city retained that name even after much of the region hellenized its imperial vocabulary, and coins struck under Trajan Decius — himself emperor for barely two years before dying at the Battle of Abrittus in 251 AD, the first Roman emperor killed in battle against a foreign enemy — carry that local identity with the full weight of a city that knew its own importance.