Sinope's colonial status — formally a Roman colonia since Julius Caesar's refoundation in 45 BC — gave its mint the right to strike bronze coinage under the imperial titulature, which is precisely why the obverse carries the colonists' formula rather than a Greek ethnic. By the time this coin was struck, Septimius Severus was in Britain conducting the Caledonian campaigns that would kill him at Eboracum in February 211, never returning to the eastern provinces where Sinope sat on its strategic Black Sea promontory.
Sinope's colonial status — formally a Roman colonia since Julius Caesar's refoundation in 45 BC — gave its mint the right to strike bronze coinage under the imperial titulature, which is precisely why the obverse carries the colonists' formula rather than a Greek ethnic. By the time this coin was struck, Septimius Severus was in Britain conducting the Caledonian campaigns that would kill him at Eboracum in February 211, never returning to the eastern provinces where Sinope sat on its strategic Black Sea promontory.