Pergamum's claim to the title of neokoros — temple warden to the imperial cult — was fiercely political. By the Severan period the city held three such wardships, a distinction it advertised aggressively on its bronze civic coinage. The magistrate named here, Tertullus, served as strategos, the presiding official whose name on the coin was both a civic honor and a form of personal political currency in the competitive hierarchy of the Asian conventus.
Pergamum had held primacy among Asian cities since Augustus, and the triple neokoros designation confirmed that standing — though Ephesus and Smyrna contested it bitterly throughout the second and third centuries.
Pergamum's claim to the title of neokoros — temple warden to the imperial cult — was fiercely political. By the Severan period the city held three such wardships, a distinction it advertised aggressively on its bronze civic coinage. The magistrate named here, Tertullus, served as strategos, the presiding official whose name on the coin was both a civic honor and a form of personal political currency in the competitive hierarchy of the Asian conventus.
Pergamum had held primacy among Asian cities since Augustus, and the triple neokoros designation confirmed that standing — though Ephesus and Smyrna contested it bitterly throughout the second and third centuries.