Æ33 - Gordian III ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ

Nicomedia's title ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — "twice neokoros" — records that the city had been granted the right to maintain two imperial cult temples, an honor conferred by Rome that carried enormous civic prestige and direct economic benefit through festival traffic. The designation was fiercely competitive among Bithynian cities; Nicomedia and Nicaea clashed repeatedly over precedence, and these coin legends were partly civic propaganda in that ongoing rivalry.

Gordian III's Bithynian issues were struck under the provincial governor, not the imperial mint, accounting for the wide weight variance seen across this type.