Æ28 - Caracalla ΖΜΥΡΝΑΙΩΝ ΠΕΡΓΑΜΗΝΩΝ, ΟΜΟΝΟΙΑ, ΕΠ ϹΤΡ ΑΙΛ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙΟΥ

This coin is a homonoia issue — struck to commemorate a formal agreement of concord between Smyrna and Pergamon, two cities that spent much of the imperial period in fierce rivalry over honorific titles, temple rights, and the coveted status of *neokoros*, temple warden of the imperial cult. The magistrate named in the legend, Aelius Apollonios, served as *strategos*, anchoring the issue to a specific civic administration rather than a dynastic moment.

Pergamon held its first neokorate under Augustus; Smyrna secured its own under Hadrian. The political friction between them made homonoia coinages both diplomatically useful and, from a modern collector's view, historically loaded.