Æ25 - Marcus Aurelius ΚΥΖΙΚΗΝ? ΝΕΩΚΟΡ (Ζ shaped as エ)

Cyzicus held the title of neokoros — temple warden of the imperial cult — and competed fiercely with rival cities like Pergamon and Smyrna for additional neokoriate grants throughout the second century. The peculiar rendering of the Z in ΝΕΩΚΟΡ as a form resembling the Japanese katakana エ is a local die-cutter's idiosyncrasy, not a copying error, and helps localize this piece to a specific workshop within the city's output under Marcus Aurelius. Such epigraphic oddities occasionally allow attributions that the legends alone, read straight, would not support.