Æ25 - Elagabalus ϹΑΡΔΙΑΝΩΝ Β ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ

Sardis held the title of neokoros — warden of the imperial cult — twice by this period, a distinction aggressively competed for among cities of the Asian conventus and displayed prominently in civic coinage as a mark of Rome's formal favor. Elagabalus, whose brief and chaotic reign ended with his murder at eighteen, was nonetheless a productive period for provincial bronze issues across Asia Minor, as cities scrambled to court an unpredictable emperor whose religious eccentricities did nothing to slow the machinery of civic honorifics.