Æ29 - Gallienus (sole reign) (C I F S AN CCCXXX)

The inscription C I F S AN CCCXXX marks this coin's date by the local Sinopean colonial era, which began in 45 BC when Julius Caesar refounded the city as Colonia Iulia Felix Sinope — the abbreviation C I F S preserves that Caesarian foundation name three centuries later. Year 330 of that reckoning places the striking precisely in the first year of Gallienus's sole reign, immediately after Valerian I was captured by Shapur I at the Battle of Edessa. Provincial mints across Pontus continued operating with remarkable bureaucratic continuity even as the Roman imperial structure fractured around them.