Æ32 - Elagabalus ΙΟΥΛΙΟΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ

Iuliopolis was a minor Bithynian city whose civic coinage output was modest even by provincial standards, making any surviving bronze from the city worth noting on those grounds alone. The city had been refounded — or at least renamed — in honor of Julius Caesar, a not uncommon form of flattery in the Roman east that nonetheless gave the mint its unusually direct link to the Julio-Claudian name. Under Elagabalus, whose four-year reign ended with his murder by the Praetorian Guard in 222, provincial mints across Bithynia continued issuing autonomously, and Iuliopolis was no exception.