Æ19 - Marcus Aurelius ΑΜΑϹΤΡΙΑΝΩΝ

Amastris, a coastal city on the Black Sea shore of Pontus, was founded by the Macedonian noblewoman Amastris — niece of Darius III — around 300 BC through the synoikism of four smaller settlements. By the time this bronze circulated under Marcus Aurelius, the city had long been under Roman provincial administration, absorbed into the combined Bithynia-Pontus province that Pompey reorganized in 64 BC. Local civic bronzes like this one filled the small-change gap that Roman imperial coinage rarely bothered to address at the street level.