Philadelphia in Lydia held the title of neokoros — temple warden to the imperial cult — and this issue, struck under the magistracy of Aurelius Roufeinos, belongs to a civic bronze tradition that the city maintained aggressively through the third century as a vehicle for demonstrating loyalty to successive emperors. Trajan Decius reigned barely two years before dying at the Battle of Abritus in 251, the first Roman emperor killed in open battle by a foreign enemy. That short window makes Philadelphia's output under his name relatively limited.
Philadelphia in Lydia held the title of neokoros — temple warden to the imperial cult — and this issue, struck under the magistracy of Aurelius Roufeinos, belongs to a civic bronze tradition that the city maintained aggressively through the third century as a vehicle for demonstrating loyalty to successive emperors. Trajan Decius reigned barely two years before dying at the Battle of Abritus in 251, the first Roman emperor killed in open battle by a foreign enemy. That short window makes Philadelphia's output under his name relatively limited.