Æ30 - Gordian III ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡ ΑΥΡ ΜΑΡΚΟΥ ΚΟΛΟΦΩΝΙΩΝ

Colophon was among the most ancient of the Ionian cities, but by the Imperial period it had long since been overshadowed by Ephesus and fell under that city's administrative conventus for judicial and provincial purposes. The magistrate named in the legend — Aurelius Markos — held the office of strategos, the civic post responsible for authorizing and funding local bronze coinage. His name appearing in the genitive construction ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡ identifies him as the issuing authority, a practice that makes Colophonian bronzes useful for reconstructing local civic prosopography even when the city itself left little other historical trace in the reign of Gordian III.