Æ22 - Septimius Severus ϹΜΥΡΝΑΙΩΝ

Smyrna was among the most competitive cities in the Roman province of Asia when it came to imperial honorifics, routinely petitioning Rome for titles like "first city" and "thrice neokoros" — designations that required demonstrable loyalty, expressed in part through civic coinage. Issues under Septimius Severus coincide with the city's aggressive pursuit of neokorate status, the right to maintain an imperial cult temple, which carried enormous prestige in inter-city rivalries with Ephesus and Pergamon.

The reference V.2#28099 places this within von Aulock's *Münzen und Städte Lydiens*, a corpus that remains the primary tool for attributing Smyrnaean bronzes of this period.