Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Æ23 - Severus Alexander ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ
| Issuer | Nicomedia (Bithynia and Pontus) |
|---|---|
| Year | 222-235 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round (irregular) |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Athena, the city's divine patroness, seated left on a high-backed throne, holding in her extended right hand a Nike bearing a wreath, symbolising victory and civic prestige. Her left arm rests upon the throne, and a large round shield stands at the side of the throne, an attribute emblematic of her martial character. The composition is rendered in the formal, hieratic style typical of Bithynian civic bronze coinage, with the reverse legend proclaiming the double neocorate honour of the city of Nicomedia encircling the scene. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Nicomedia earned its second neokorate — the honorific right to maintain an imperial cult temple — under Septimius Severus, and the city wasted no time advertising the distinction on its coinage. The title ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ, meaning "twice temple warden," was fiercely competed among Bithynian cities, with Nicomedia and Nicaea engaged in sustained rivalry over precedence throughout the Severan period.
Provincial rivalry occasionally turned into formal petitions to Rome, with delegations dispatched to argue competing claims before the emperor himself.