AR19 - Hadrian ΑΜΙϹΟΥ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΑϹ ΕΤΟΥϹ ΡΞϚ

Amisus held the rare status of a free city within the Roman provincial system — a privilege confirmed and maintained under Hadrian, who toured the eastern provinces extensively between 131 and 134 AD. The civic era date encoded in the legend places this coin precisely within that administrative moment, when the city was actively asserting its autonomy through its own coinage and calendar. Pliny the Younger had governed Pontus-Bithynia from nearby Amastris just two decades earlier and corresponded with Trajan about exactly which cities deserved such freedoms.