Æ31 - Elagabalus ΒΟΥΛΗ ΔΗΜΟϹ ΤΙΑΝΩΝ

Tium was a minor coastal polis on the Black Sea shore of Bithynia, overshadowed throughout antiquity by Heraclea Pontica to its east. That it continued issuing civic bronze under Elagabalus — one of the more chaotic reigns of the third century — reflects the persistent autonomy of provincial minting even as the imperial court lurched from scandal to scandal in Rome. The coin invokes both the Boule and Demos as issuing authority, a formulaic civic assertion that nonetheless carried real administrative weight in a city this size.