PAPHLAGONIA. Germanicopolis. Caracalla, 198-217. Tetrassarion (Orichalcum, 33 mm, 18.04 g, 6 h). AYT•K•M•AYP•ANTΩNINOC Laureate and cuirassed bust of Caracalla to right, seen from behind. Rev. APX• / ΠAΦ• - ΓANΓPΩ/N• View of the akropolis of Gangra-Germanicopolis, with two smaller buildings, with pointed roofs, between two large towers; all buildings with entrances; the smaller building on the right seen in half-perspective. Bricault & Delrieux 112. Price & Trell fig. 517. RPC V.3 online 79033. Very rare. Some deposits and with spots of corrosion on the obverse, otherwise, nearly very fine.



Buried beneath the modern Turkish town of Çankırı, nothing of Gangra-Germanicopolis has survived to the present day; hence, we do not know what the ancient city looked like, except for the unusual architectural images appearing on very rare Roman provincial issues struck under Caracalla. Given the two towers on the left and right, and the masonry emerging from the left tower, it seems likely that this is a rendering of the city walls—or more specifically, of the local akropolis. That Gangra-Germanicopolis was fortified follows from Strabo, who reports that the Galatian dynast Deiotaros '...possessed Gangra, the royal residence of Morzeüs, which was at the same time a small town and a fortress'. (Strab. XII, 3.41)

It is worth noting that this is the only issue of Gangra to omit its Roman name, Germanicopolis, leading Bricault and Delrieux to speculate that the depiction of the local, presumably very old akropolis, and the emphasis on the city’s native name, may represent a deliberate accentuation of Gangra’s antiquity—thus underlining the rather unsubtle epithet ΑΡΧ ΠΑΦ (= ἀρχαιοτάτη Παφλαγονίας), meaning 'the oldest (city) of Paphlagonia'.