Æ32 - Severus Alexander ΑΜΙϹΟΥ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΑϹ ΕΤ ϹΝΓ

Amisus was one of the few cities in Pontus that retained the status of a free city — *civitas libera* — under Roman rule, a privilege first granted by Lucullus following his campaigns against Mithridates VI and later confirmed by Caesar. That freedom entitled the city to maintain its own civic calendar, which is precisely what the ΕΤ ϹΝΓ date formula reflects: year 253 of the Amisene civic era, anchored to approximately 85 BC. The coin therefore dates itself by the city's own reckoning, not Rome's — a deliberate assertion of that long-standing autonomy during the co-reign of Elagabalus and the young Severus Alexander, before the latter's formal elevation.