Æ21 - Septimius Severus ΠΡΟΥϹΑΕΩΝ

Prusa ad Olympum, nestled at the foot of Mount Olympus in Bithynia, was a city with strong civic pride and a history of issuing local bronze coinage that asserted its Greek cultural identity under Roman rule. Septimius Severus came to power through civil war in 193 AD, and provincial mints across the Greek east were quick to strike in his name — partly loyalty, partly pragmatism after years of instability under Commodus and the chaos of the Year of the Five Emperors.

The city's name appears in the genitive plural on these bronzes, a formulaic civic claim that Prusa maintained consistently across imperial reigns.