MYSIA, PARIUM, Valerian I, 253-260 AD, bronze

DescriptionParion was a major port of northern Anatolia on the Sea of Marmara. It grew rich from tolls. In Roman times it’s importance declined relative to that of Nicaea not too far away.Mysia is the far northwestern salient of Anatolia. The cultural and political progression was paleolithic, neolithic, bronze age, Hittite, Phoenician, Greek, Persian, Macedonian, Seleukid, Roman, Byzantine, Mongol, Turkish.The Romans, as they were building their empire, preferred to let the local coinage arrangements remain in place. As they developed their political system into the Cult of Personality that was the Empire, they started putting imperial portraits on the local coins. Later, as the Empire began to shrink, they preferred to centralize their coinage operations, eliminating local control. There were also allied and client states, some of which, at times, issued coins celebrating the alliance or subservience. The main catalog reference for these coins on this web site is Greek Imperial Coins and their Values, by David Sear.“Ancient Coins” includes Greek and Roman coins and those of neighbors and successors, geographically from Morocco and Spain all the way to Afghanistan. Date ranges for these begin with the world’s earliest coins of the 8th century BC to, in an extreme case, the end of Byzantine Empire, 1453 AD.