Æ29 - Marcus Aurelius ΠΡΟΥϹΙΕΩΝ ΠΡΟϹ ΥΠΙΩ

Prusias ad Hypium sat on the Hypius River in Bithynia, a city that had reinvented its name at least twice — originally Kieros, then renamed in honor of Prusias II of Bithynia, the king who notoriously handed Hannibal over to Roman envoys in 183 BC rather than face war. The city's bronze coinage under Marcus Aurelius belongs to a period when provincial mints across the Greek East were asserting civic identity through autonomous bronze issues, a practice Rome tolerated as a local pressure valve. This particular issue dates to the years of the co-reign with Lucius Verus, when the empire was simultaneously fighting the Parthians and managing the early tremors of the Antonine Plague.