Tium was a minor coastal polis on the Black Sea shore of Bithynia, overshadowed commercially by Amastris to the east and administratively subordinate to the Roman provincial structure that Augustus had formalized for Bithynia-Pontus. Its civic bronze coinage under Antoninus Pius is sparse in the numismatic record, and the ethnic ΤΙΑΝΩΝ — identifying the issuing community — appears on a handful of types that collectively suggest a city asserting municipal identity it had little political weight to back up.
Tium was a minor coastal polis on the Black Sea shore of Bithynia, overshadowed commercially by Amastris to the east and administratively subordinate to the Roman provincial structure that Augustus had formalized for Bithynia-Pontus. Its civic bronze coinage under Antoninus Pius is sparse in the numismatic record, and the ethnic ΤΙΑΝΩΝ — identifying the issuing community — appears on a handful of types that collectively suggest a city asserting municipal identity it had little political weight to back up.