Æ23 - Elagabalus ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ

Hierapolis in Phrygia earned the title neokoros — temple warden — through formal imperial grant, an honor that entitled the city to maintain a cult temple in the emperor's name and granted significant prestige in the competitive civic hierarchy of Asia Minor. Under Elagabalus, whose own religious program centered on the solar deity Elagabal at Emesa, the city's neokorate status carried particular political weight: advertising loyalty to a new and controversial emperor was both a civic investment and a calculated act of self-preservation.

The Conventus of Cibyra grouped Hierapolis among a cluster of Phrygian cities whose bronze coinage was produced locally under civic magistrates, with no central mint oversight.