Æ30 - Elagabalus ΒΙΘΥΝΙΕΩΝ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΩΝ

Bithynium — refounded and renamed Claudiopolis in honor of Claudius, though local coinage continued invoking the Hadrianic civic title long after — was the birthplace of Antinous, Hadrian's famously beloved companion whose death in the Nile in 130 AD triggered an empire-wide deification cult. The city milked that connection aggressively, and the ΑΔΡΙΑΝΩΝ ethnic in the legend reflects the honorific status Hadrian personally granted the community. That a city so defined by its association with one emperor was still advertising the fact under Elagabalus, nearly a century later, says something about the durability of civic prestige politics in the Greek east.