Æ15 - Nero ΜΑΓΥΤΗΣ ΝΕΩΤΕΡΟΣ ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ

The epithet ΜΑΓΥΤΗΣ ΝΕΩΤΕΡΟΣ — "the younger Magus" — applied to Nero in this provincial issue from Hierapolis in Phrygia reflects a local honorific tradition with roots in Persian religious vocabulary, likely carried into the region through centuries of Achaemenid influence. The city was positioning a sixteen-year-old emperor, fresh to the throne after Claudius's death in 54 AD, within a framework its population found meaningful. Hierapolis sat within the Conventus of Cibyra, an administrative grouping whose civic coinages under the early Principate show marked individuality in their honorific titulature.