Æ26 - Severus Alexander ΤΡΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ

Nicomedia's claim to the title ΤΡΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — "thrice temple-warden" — was hard-won and politically charged. The city had long competed with Nicaea for primacy in Bithynia, and each neokorate award from the emperor represented a formal imperial endorsement in that rivalry. By the reign of Severus Alexander, Nicomedia held three such grants, accumulated across successive emperors, and civic bronze coinage advertising that status was as much diplomatic currency as it was money.

Severus Alexander's reign ended with his murder by mutinous troops on the Rhine frontier in 235 AD, closing the Severan dynasty entirely.