Æ34 - Septimius Severus ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡ ΚΛ ΑΡΙϹΤΟΦΑΝΟΥϹ, ϹΜΥΡΝΑΙΩΝ

Smyrna's civic coinage under Septimius Severus names the local strategos Claudius Aristophanes in the inscription — a man whose tenure we can only pin to this administrative period through the coins themselves. Provincial bronzes of this size from Smyrna were struck on civic authority, not imperial, meaning the city negotiated its own minting rights and bore the cost of production locally.

The strategos title here reflects the Hellenized administrative structure Rome permitted in the Greek East, where cities retained the vocabulary of their classical institutions long after losing the substance.