Æ22 - Trajan ΕΠΙ Γ ΙΟΥ ΒΑΣΣΟΥ ΑΝΘΥΠΑΤΟΥ

The Koinon of Bithynia — the provincial council authorized to strike bronze for local circulation — issued coins bearing the name of the sitting proconsul as a matter of administrative record, not honor. Gaius Julius Bassus held the proconsulship of Bithynia et Pontus under Trajan, almost certainly in the first decade of the second century. His tenure is documented partly through Pliny the Younger's correspondence with Trajan, which reveals persistent financial mismanagement across Bithynian cities during exactly this period.