Antioch on the Maeander was a minor Carian city whose civic coinage under Gallienus belongs to the broader collapse of centralized Roman authority during the Crisis of the Third Century. After Valerian's capture by Shapur I in 260 AD — the singular humiliation of a sitting emperor taken prisoner by a foreign king — Gallienus ruled alone, and provincial mints across Asia Minor continued producing civic bronze largely independent of imperial oversight. This piece is one of those issues, struck at a city whose output survives in frustratingly small numbers.
Antioch on the Maeander was a minor Carian city whose civic coinage under Gallienus belongs to the broader collapse of centralized Roman authority during the Crisis of the Third Century. After Valerian's capture by Shapur I in 260 AD — the singular humiliation of a sitting emperor taken prisoner by a foreign king — Gallienus ruled alone, and provincial mints across Asia Minor continued producing civic bronze largely independent of imperial oversight. This piece is one of those issues, struck at a city whose output survives in frustratingly small numbers.