Æ35 - Elagabalus ΕΠ ϹΤΡ ΑΥΡ ΝΕΙΚΩΝΟϹ Β ΕΡΥΘΡΑΙΩΝ

Erythrae was one of the cities claiming to be the birthplace of the Cumaean Sibyl, a distinction it leveraged aggressively in civic coinage during the imperial period. The magistrate named in this issue's legend — Aurelius Nikon — held the office of strategos, a honorific civic post by the Severan period that wealthy provincials purchased partly for the right to sponsor exactly this kind of bronze civic emission. Elagabalus's reign lasted only four years before his murder by the Praetorian Guard in 222, making the window for this series narrow.