Nicomedia held the neokorate — the right to maintain an imperial cult temple — twice by the time Decius reigned, a status the city had fought for aggressively since the first century AD and which placed it in direct rivalry with Nicaea over provincial primacy. The title ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ on coins of this period was not ceremonial filler; it was a pointed assertion of rank in a city that had already lost and regained the honor once under Caracalla's reorganization of the eastern neokorate hierarchy.
Decius himself was killed at the Battle of Abritus in June 251, the first Roman emperor to die in battle against a foreign enemy — cutting this reign, and its provincial coinage, short at roughly two years.
Nicomedia held the neokorate — the right to maintain an imperial cult temple — twice by the time Decius reigned, a status the city had fought for aggressively since the first century AD and which placed it in direct rivalry with Nicaea over provincial primacy. The title ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ on coins of this period was not ceremonial filler; it was a pointed assertion of rank in a city that had already lost and regained the honor once under Caracalla's reorganization of the eastern neokorate hierarchy.
Decius himself was killed at the Battle of Abritus in June 251, the first Roman emperor to die in battle against a foreign enemy — cutting this reign, and its provincial coinage, short at roughly two years.