Æ31 - Valerian and Gallienus ΕΠΙ Ϲ ΒΑΛ ΑΡΙϹΤΟΜΑΧΟΥ ΜΥΤΙΛΗ/ΝΑΙΩΝ

Mytilene's civic bronze issues under the joint reign depended entirely on the goodwill of provincial governors — the magistrate name embedded in this coin's legend, Bal. Aristomachos, is the strategos responsible for authorizing the strike, a local official whose career is otherwise unattested in surviving epigraphic or literary sources. The conventus of Pergamum administered a sprawling network of such civic mints, and Mytilene was among the more active, continuing to produce large bronzes well into the 260s as Roman imperial coinage itself collapsed into the crisis-ridden antoninianus glut.