MINT MARKS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Until the mid-3rd century the Roman empire had produced most of its state coinage at the mint of Rome. There had been occasional exceptions where some coins, generally silver denarii, had been struck elsewhere as, for example, the denarii struck at Lyons under the Julio-Claudian dynasty and those struck at two mints ascribed to Emesa and Laodicea by Septimius Severus, a wartime expedient occasioned by his conflict with Pescennius Niger in the Eastern provinces. But, by and large, it was the case that the empire’s coins were minted in the imperial capital itself and then transported to where they were needed.

By the 250s, however, the Roman empire had become a very different place to the Principate of the 1st century AD. Conflicts on the borders were exacerbated by Civil Wars within and the presence of usurpers, some successful and others not, meant that more mints were now needed, nearer to the various centres