Æ23 - Marcus Aurelius ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ

Nicaea's civic bronze coinage under Marcus Aurelius reflects the city's confidence during a period of relative administrative stability in Bithynia — the province had been tightly managed since Pliny the Younger's correspondence with Trajan exposed chronic financial mismanagement in its cities decades earlier. By the Antonine period, Nicaean civic issues were prolific enough that die matches across surviving specimens are common, suggesting concentrated production runs rather than continuous minting.