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Æ34 - Hadrian ΚΟΙ-ΝΟΝ ΒΕΙΘΥΝΙΑϹ
| Issuer | Koinon of Bithynia (Bithynia and Pontus) |
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| Year | 117-138 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Bare, laureate, and bearded head of Emperor Hadrian facing right, rendered with characteristic portrait realism of the Hadrianic period. The laureate wreath sits prominently atop the carefully detailed curled hair, with the short beard — a hallmark of Hadrian's imperial portraiture — rendered with fine die engraving. The circular Greek legend runs around the periphery of the flan, reading ΑΥΤ ΚΑΙϹ ΤΡΑΙ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟϹ ϹΕΒ, identifying the emperor as Autocrator Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus. The portrait is boldly struck within an unbordered field typical of provincial bronze coinage of the Bithynian koinon. |
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| Obverse script | Greek |
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The Koinon of Bithynia was the provincial assembly of the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus, one of the most economically significant regions of Asia Minor. Under Hadrian, the koinon gained particular prominence — the emperor visited the province and maintained a close personal connection to the region, partly through his relationship with Antinous, who was born in Claudiopolis in Bithynia. That association likely explains the unusual volume and quality of honorific coinage the koinon produced during his reign compared to neighboring provincial assemblies.
Pliny the Younger governed Bithynia et Pontus as a special imperial legate under Trajan just a decade before this issue, his famous correspondence with Trajan about the Christians among the surviving administrative documents from the province.