Nicomedia's claim to the title ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — temple-warden — was hard-won political currency. The city held its first neokorate under Domitian, lost standing under subsequent reorganizations, and spent decades lobbying emperors for confirmation of the honor. The ΔΙϹ designation on this issue signals a second neokorate, almost certainly secured through Severus himself, whose Parthian campaigns made cultivating loyal eastern cities both strategically and financially useful to the throne.
At 34mm this is a substantial civic bronze, the kind produced for ceremonial and administrative circulation rather than small daily transactions.
Nicomedia's claim to the title ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ — temple-warden — was hard-won political currency. The city held its first neokorate under Domitian, lost standing under subsequent reorganizations, and spent decades lobbying emperors for confirmation of the honor. The ΔΙϹ designation on this issue signals a second neokorate, almost certainly secured through Severus himself, whose Parthian campaigns made cultivating loyal eastern cities both strategically and financially useful to the throne.
At 34mm this is a substantial civic bronze, the kind produced for ceremonial and administrative circulation rather than small daily transactions.