Iasus was a coastal city in Caria whose civic coinage under Septimius Severus almost certainly honored Caracalla as co-ruler — the legend fragment "ΑΥΡ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟϹ" pointing to the caesar rather than the emperor himself. The conventus of Alabanda administered Roman judicial and administrative business for this stretch of the Aegean coast, and local bronzes like this one circulated primarily within that regional economy rather than beyond it.
Iasus had long leveraged its famous sponge-fishing industry and its position on a sheltered bay for civic prosperity. The city's right to strike bronze was a jealously maintained privilege during the Severan period.
Iasus was a coastal city in Caria whose civic coinage under Septimius Severus almost certainly honored Caracalla as co-ruler — the legend fragment "ΑΥΡ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟϹ" pointing to the caesar rather than the emperor himself. The conventus of Alabanda administered Roman judicial and administrative business for this stretch of the Aegean coast, and local bronzes like this one circulated primarily within that regional economy rather than beyond it.
Iasus had long leveraged its famous sponge-fishing industry and its position on a sheltered bay for civic prosperity. The city's right to strike bronze was a jealously maintained privilege during the Severan period.