Æ22 - Augustus ΑΜΑΣΤΡΕΩΣ, ΓΜ

Amastris was a Pontic coastal city that had passed through Macedonian, Seleucid, and finally Roman hands by the late first century BC, retaining enough civic prestige to mint its own bronze under Augustus. The magistrate abbreviation ΓΜ appearing on this issue identifies it as the product of a local official — a Greek grammateus or similar functionary — whose office persisted well into the imperial period as Rome allowed Bithynian and Pontic cities considerable administrative autonomy. The city's name itself derived from a niece of Darius III who ruled it as a Hellenistic dynast around 300 BC.