Æ23 - Byzantium ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΩΝ

Byzantium's coinage from this period reflects the city's uncomfortable position between Roman power and the lingering Greek civic traditions it refused to abandon. By the first century BC, Byzantium had long since ceded meaningful independence — it became a subject ally of Rome following the Third Mithridatic War — yet the city retained the right to strike bronze civic coinage, a privilege Rome extended selectively and often as a reward for loyalty or strategic usefulness. Byzantium's control of the Bosphorus tolls made it worth keeping cooperative.