Æ30 - Antoninus Pius ΙΠΠΟΝ ΒΡΟΤΟΠΟΔΑ ΜΝΑ ΧΡΥϹΕΑ ΠΟΛΙϹ

Nicaea's civic bronze coinage under Antoninus Pius belongs to a period when Bithynian cities competed aggressively through coin imagery to assert mythological prestige and secure imperial favor. The inscription ΙΠΠΟΝ ΒΡΟΤΟΠΟΔΑ ΜΝΑ ΧΡΥϹΕΑ ΠΟΛΙϹ — "the city of the golden mina of the horse with mortal feet" — is a direct quotation from Pindar's Olympian Odes, referencing the mythological horse Pegasus and Nicaea's claim to Hellenistic cultural authority. Few provincial bronzes cite lyric poetry so explicitly.