Æ17 - Trajan Decius ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ

Nicaea's civic bronze output under Trajan Decius was part of a broader last flourish of provincial coinage in Bithynia before the Roman imperial mint system effectively crowded out local issues in the third century. The city had been a major minting center since the Hellenistic period and jealously maintained that role, embedding its full ethnic legend — ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ — on its issues as an assertion of civic identity at a moment when Decius was simultaneously demanding empire-wide veneration of the traditional Roman gods, a policy that triggered the first systematic persecution of Christians.