Æ22 - Gallienus (sole reign) (ΗΡΑΚΛΗΑϹ ΝΕΟΚΟΡΩ)

Heraclea Pontica's civic bronze coinage under Gallienus's sole reign reflects the administrative fragmentation of the 260s, when the eastern provinces were effectively cut off from Rome by Postumus's breakaway Gallic Empire to the west and the Palmyrene expansion to the east. The city's use of the neokoros title — claiming the honor of housing an imperially sanctioned temple cult — was a political assertion as much as a religious one, cities competing fiercely for such designations as imperial attention grew scarce.