Dupondius - Valerianus ΛAEΡTEITΩN, Laertes

Laertes was a small coastal city in Rough Cilicia — the rugged, pirate-haunted stretch of southern Anatolia that Rome never fully pacified — and its civic bronze issues under Valerian I belong to a burst of local coinage activity that accompanied the emperor's eastern campaigns against Shapur I. These provincial issues were essentially municipal self-promotion, struck with imperial permission to facilitate local exchange during a period when the central silver coinage was debased to near-worthlessness.

BMC RE#7 is among the better-documented specimens from this obscure mint.