Iuliopolis (AD 98-117) AE 33 - Trajan

Trajan, 98-117 AD. AE33 (24.99g, 7h). AVT NЄPOVAΣ TPAIANOΣ KAIΣAP ΣEBA ΓEPM, laureate head right / Ares advancing right, holding spear and trophy over shoulder; partly monogrammatic ethnic flanking. Good VF, dark green patina. From Group CEM.

For similar Bithynian coins under Domitian, see RPC II 632, 653, and 671, which copy Latin legend “Mars” sestertii struck AD 80-82 at an uncertain mint either in Thrace or Bithynia (for discussion of the mints see: A. Burnett, “Regional coinage in Thrace and Bithynia during the Flavian period,” Travaux Le Rider pp. 95-101; Herbert Cahn, “An Imperial mint in Bithynia,” INJ 8 (1984/5), pp. 14-26). In place of the “S C” across the reverse field, however, one finds civic monograms in two parts for Nicaea (“NKA - ΠΡ” ), Nicomedia (“NKO - ΠΡ”), and Prusias ad Hypium (“ΠΡ - YΠ”). No such Domitianic “sestertii” survive from Juliopolis, but the current coin and the obverse die-linked von Aulock specimen (which interestingly transforms Pax of the sestertii into Homonoia) demonstrate a continued interest in appropriating Imperial types for local coinage in Bithynia.