Æ26 - Valerian and Gallienus ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ

Nicaea's civic bronze issues under the joint reign of Valerian I and Gallienus represent a city still investing in its own prestige during a period when the Roman empire was fracturing badly — Valerian would be captured by Shapur I of Persia in 260 AD, the only Roman emperor ever taken prisoner by a foreign enemy. Provincial mints across Bithynia continued striking civic coinage almost without interruption through the crisis, a measure of how far municipal identity had decoupled from imperial stability.