Pergamum held the title neokoros — temple warden of the imperial cult — multiple times over, a distinction the city leveraged aggressively in its civic coinage. The gamma (Γ) in the ethnic abbreviation denotes third-neokorate status, a rank Pergamum secured incrementally through the second and third centuries by hosting successive imperial cult temples. Under Gordian III, the city was still capitalizing on that prestige while the teenage emperor's Praetorian prefect, Timesitheus, did the actual governing in Rome.
Pergamum held the title neokoros — temple warden of the imperial cult — multiple times over, a distinction the city leveraged aggressively in its civic coinage. The gamma (Γ) in the ethnic abbreviation denotes third-neokorate status, a rank Pergamum secured incrementally through the second and third centuries by hosting successive imperial cult temples. Under Gordian III, the city was still capitalizing on that prestige while the teenage emperor's Praetorian prefect, Timesitheus, did the actual governing in Rome.