Æ35 - Commodus ΕΠΙ ΡΟΥΦΟΥ ΠΑΜΦ ΑΡΧ Α ΦΙΛΑΔΕΛΦΕΩΝ

Philadelphia in Lydia — modern Alaşehir — was one of the last cities in Asia Minor to hold out against Mithridates VI during the First Mithridatic War, enduring a prolonged siege rather than surrendering, a defiance that earned it lasting Roman favor. The magistrate named in the legend, Rufus, served as archon during the middle years of Commodus's reign, a period when provincial civic coinage in the Sardis conventus was flourishing under the relative stability of the eastern administrations, even as Rome itself descended into the erratic rule that would end with Commodus's assassination in 192.