Æ21 - Antoninus Pius ΜΗΤ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΩΤ ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΙΑϹ

Nicomedia's claim to the title ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΩΤΗ — metropolis and first city — was a fiercely contested designation in Bithynia, with rival Nicaea disputing provincial primacy for generations. The competition played out not just in the courts of Roman governors but on the coinage itself, where both cities routinely advertised their honorific titles as political statements directed at Rome. Antoninus Pius, notably cautious in his handling of provincial rivalries, appears to have allowed both cities to continue using the disputed epithets simultaneously rather than adjudicating the matter definitively.