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Figure 14.8D Copper-alloy coin of Valerian I (253–260 CE), minted at Ptolemais. The obverse shows the emperor in military attire, carrying a shield and with a spear over his shoulder. The reverse has a tree, flanked by two altars, from which a snake is seen rising, and a caduceus on the right-hand side. The exact nature of the cult expressed by this image is uncertain, but the presence of a caduceus suggests a connection with Hermes. Ptolemais was given the status of a Roman colony under Claudius (41–54 CE), and consequently the legends on its coinage are in Latin.

Figure 14.9A Copper-alloy coin of the joint emperors Trebonianus Gallus and Volusian (251–253 CE), minted at Antioch. The obverse shows busts of the two emperors facing each other (Trebonianus Gallus on the left, and his son Volusian on the right). The reverse depicts the statue group of the Tyche of Antioch with the river Orontes at her feet, housed in a portable shrine with carry-bars at the bottom. Above the shrine, a ram (probably a Zodiacal symbol) is shown leaping right. Although Antioch was a Roman colony at the time, its coinage continued to carry Greek legends (even the title “colonia” appears in Greek on the reverse, abbreviated at the bottom right as KOΛΩΝ).