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Æ31 - Elagabalus ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ
| Issuer | City of Hierapolis (Conventus of Cibyra) |
|---|---|
| Year | 218-222 |
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| Composition | Bronze |
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|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
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| Reverse description | Tyche, the tutelary goddess of the city, depicted standing facing with head turned to the left, wearing a kalathos (basket crown) atop her head. She holds a rudder in her right hand, symbolising guidance and fortune, and a cornucopia (horn of plenty) in her left arm. The Greek civic legend is distributed in two lines around the field, proclaiming the neocorate status of Hierapolis. The figure is rendered in the static, frontal provincial style characteristic of Phrygian civic bronze issues of the early third century AD. |
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| Additional information |
Hierapolis in Phrygia earned the title ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — temple-warden — through the imperial cult, a distinction cities competed for aggressively during the Severan period. That Elagabalus appears here as the legitimizing figure is notable: his reign was so theologically disruptive in Rome that provincial mints often issued coinage at a pace disconnected from central directives, cities essentially banking on imperial portraiture before political winds shifted.
The Conventus of Cibyra grouped Hierapolis administratively under the assize circuit centered at Cibyra, and civic bronzes from this grouping are underrepresented in major collections relative to their Pergamene or Ephesian counterparts.