Æ21 - Severus Alexander ΤΡΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ

Nicomedia's claim to the title ΤΡΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — "thrice temple-warden" — was hard-won and politically charged. The city had long competed with Nicaea for primacy in Bithynia, and each imperial cult neocorate grant was as much a weapon in that rivalry as it was an honor from Rome. Nicomedia secured its third neocorate under Caracalla, giving it a standing advantage it pressed relentlessly in civic coinage throughout the Severan period.

Under Severus Alexander the title continued to appear prominently on local bronzes, the city extracting maximum prestige from an honor it had no intention of letting be forgotten.