Æ34 - Hadrian ΚΟΙ-ΝΟΝ ΒΕΙΘΥΝΙΑϹ

The Koinon of Bithynia — the provincial league of Bithynian cities — held the right to strike bronze coinage honoring the imperial cult, a privilege that made these issues politically significant within the province even if Rome treated them as local small change. Hadrian visited Bithynia at least twice, and his relationship with the region was anything but administrative: it was on the shores of the Bosporus that his companion Antinous drowned in 130 AD, an event that sent the emperor into documented grief and triggered a province-wide deification program.

The league's coinage from this reign circulated primarily within Bithynia-Pontus and rarely traveled far.