Æ33 - Trajan ΖΕΥϹ ϹΥΡΓΑϹΤΕΙΟϹ ΤΙΑΝΩΝ

Tium was a minor coastal polis on the Pontic shore whose civic coinage under Trajan reflects the city's attempt to assert a distinct religious identity through the epithet ϹΥΡΓΑϹΤΕΙΟϹ — a localized cult title for Zeus found almost nowhere else in the numismatic record. The precise meaning and origin of that epithet remain contested among epigraphers, with no surviving inscription from Tium itself resolving the question.

The dating window aligns with Trajan's Dacian Wars, a period when provincial cities across Bithynia-Pontus were actively minting larger bronze to meet regional demand as imperial attention — and money — flowed north and west.