Nicaea's bronze coinage under Septimius Severus belongs to the flowering of civic coinage in Bithynia, a region whose cities competed vigorously for imperial favor and the prestige titles — Neokoros, metropolis — that came with it. Nicaea and its rival Nicomedia spent much of the Severan period lobbying Rome over primacy in the province, a dispute that generated an unusual volume of civic bronze issues as each city worked to demonstrate its loyalty and cultural standing to the emperor.
Nicaea's bronze coinage under Septimius Severus belongs to the flowering of civic coinage in Bithynia, a region whose cities competed vigorously for imperial favor and the prestige titles — Neokoros, metropolis — that came with it. Nicaea and its rival Nicomedia spent much of the Severan period lobbying Rome over primacy in the province, a dispute that generated an unusual volume of civic bronze issues as each city worked to demonstrate its loyalty and cultural standing to the emperor.