Æ25 - Severus Alexander ΒΟΥΛΗ ΤΙΑΝΩΝ

Tium was a minor coastal polis on the Black Sea shore of Bithynia, perpetually overshadowed by its larger neighbors Nicomedia and Nicaea, yet it maintained the civic pride — and the budget — to strike bronze under Severus Alexander. The city's council, the Boulē, appears as the issuing authority here, a relatively uncommon arrangement that placed municipal civic identity rather than imperial flattery at the center of the issue.

The Boulē coinage of small Bithynian cities often postdates the end of regular civic bronze production elsewhere in the province, suggesting Tium was among the last holdouts of autonomous municipal minting in the region before Gallienus effectively ended it empire-wide.