Æ17 - Philip I ΕΦΕϹΙΩΝ

Ephesus held the title neokoros — warden of the imperial cult — multiple times over, a distinction cities competed for ferociously through embassies to Rome and substantial financial outlay. Philip I, an Arab from the Hauran region of Syria who came to power after engineering the death of Gordian III on campaign in Mesopotamia, was the kind of emperor provincial mints needed to court quickly. Small civic bronzes like this one, circulating locally in the Cayster valley, functioned as much as political currency as commercial.