Æ22 - Gordian III ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ

Nicomedia held the title of neokoros — temple warden of the imperial cult — twice over by Gordian III's reign, a distinction fiercely competed for among cities of the eastern provinces and formally awarded by the Roman Senate. The inscription ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ advertises both grants as civic prestige, the kind of honorific that drove expensive embassy missions to Rome and intense local rivalry with Nicaea, which contested Nicomedia's primacy throughout the third century.