Æ25 - Valerian and Gallienus ΕФΕϹΙΩΝ Δ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ

Ephesus held the title of neokoros — temple warden — four times by the mid-third century, an accumulation of imperial cult honors that the city jealously guarded and prominently advertised on its bronze civic issues. The joint reign of Valerian and Gallienus, 253–268, was one of the most catastrophic periods in Roman history: Persian invasion, plague, and the fragmentation that would become the Crisis of the Third Century. That Ephesus continued producing civic bronzes through this period speaks to the city's administrative tenacity and its insistence on maintaining prestige even as the empire buckled around it.