Æ40 - Marcus Aurelius ΠΡΟΥϹΙΕΩΝ ΠΡΟϹ ΥΠΙΩ

Prusias ad Hypium — modern Konuralp in northwestern Turkey — was a Bithynian city whose civic coinage under Marcus Aurelius coincided almost exactly with the Antonine Plague, the devastating epidemic carried back from the Parthian campaigns that killed an estimated five million people across the empire between 165 and 180 AD. Provincial bronze of this size and weight was expensive to produce relative to its face value, which is part of why large-module civic issues from Bithynian mints during this decade survive in such small numbers — disrupted trade and depopulation hit civic mint output hard.