Æ13 - Augustus ΑΒΥ

Abydus, positioned at the narrowest crossing of the Hellespont, had been a strategically vital city for centuries before Augustus reorganized the eastern provinces. Its assignment to the Conventus of Adramyteum under the new provincial administration of Asia placed it within a judicial district whose civic coinages were largely autonomous in design but implicitly dependent on Roman tolerance. Small bronzes of this type circulated as the lowest-denomination local currency, filling a gap the imperial mint had no interest in supplying.