Æ18 - Augustus Α ΦΟΥΡΙΟΣ ΙΕΡΕΥΣ ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΑΡΧΩΝ, ΠΕΡΓΑΜΗΝΩΝ

This issue was struck under the local magistrate Aulus Furius, who held the dual office of priest and gymnasiarch — an unusual combination that points to the civic elite's deliberate consolidation of religious and educational authority in Augustan Pergamum. The gymnasiarchy was expensive; magistrates funded the gymnasium's oil supply personally, making the office as much a display of wealth as of civic duty.

Pergamum had been the first city in Asia to receive permission to establish an imperial cult, granted in 29 BC, and local magistrates competed vigorously for association with that prestige.