Æ37 - Septimius Severus ΕΠΙ ΑΡΧ ΦΛ ΒΑ ΠΡΟΚΛΟΥ, ΑΒΥΔΗΝ

Abydus sat at the narrowest crossing of the Hellespont — the same strait Xerxes bridged with boats in 480 BC and Leander supposedly swam nightly in myth. Under Severus, the city retained enough civic standing to issue bronze on this scale, with the magistrate Flavius Proklos named prominently in the inscription, a local official whose authority to sanction the issue reflects the Roman provincial system of delegated minting rights to loyal municipalities.

The Conventus of Adramyteum administered a stretch of the Asian coast where Greek civic identity remained stubbornly intact well into the imperial period. Proklos's name surviving on the die is one of the few records of his existence.