Tium was a minor Bithynian coastal city whose civic coinage under Septimius Severus reflects the broader pattern of Greek-speaking eastern municipalities leveraging the new dynasty's consolidation period — roughly 193 to 197 AD — to secure imperial favor through bronze issue programs. The city's output under Severus is sparse, and this piece is among relatively few attributed civic bronzes from Tium in the entire reference corpus.
The ethnic ΤΙΑΝΩΝ identifies the issuing civic authority unambiguously, a point worth noting given longstanding attribution confusion between Tium and neighboring Bithynian mints in earlier scholarship.
Tium was a minor Bithynian coastal city whose civic coinage under Septimius Severus reflects the broader pattern of Greek-speaking eastern municipalities leveraging the new dynasty's consolidation period — roughly 193 to 197 AD — to secure imperial favor through bronze issue programs. The city's output under Severus is sparse, and this piece is among relatively few attributed civic bronzes from Tium in the entire reference corpus.
The ethnic ΤΙΑΝΩΝ identifies the issuing civic authority unambiguously, a point worth noting given longstanding attribution confusion between Tium and neighboring Bithynian mints in earlier scholarship.