Æ30 - Caracalla C I F SINOP ANN CCLVIIII

The date formula on this coin — ANN CCLVIIII, year 259 of the Pontic era — anchors it precisely to 213–214 AD, during Caracalla's sole reign following his murder of Geta. Sinope had been a Roman colony since Julius Caesar's refoundation in 45 BC, and its civic calendar counted from that moment, giving the city an unusually precise epigraphic dating system that modern scholars rely on heavily for sequencing provincial bronzes from this mint.