Æ17 - Caligula C I F AN LXXXIII

Sinope, on the Black Sea coast of Pontus, had been a Roman colony since Julius Caesar refounded it in 45 BC — one of his last colonial acts before his assassination. This piece dates to the opening year of Caligula's reign, when provincial mints across the empire rushed to honor the new emperor. The colonial era count in the legend, reading year 83, anchors it precisely to 37–38 AD and provides one of the cleaner chronological fixed points in the entire Sinopean colonial series.