Æ41 - Septimius Severus ΕΠΙ Γ Ι ΚΡΙϹΠΟΥ ΑΡΧ ϹΑΡΔΙΑΝΩΝ ΔΙϹ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ, ΕΥϹΕΒΕΙΑ

Sardis held the title of neokoros — official keeper of an imperial cult temple — twice over by the Severan period, a distinction the city pursued aggressively through embassies to Rome and competed for bitterly against rival Lydian cities. The magistrate name preserved in the legend, Krispos, helps anchor this issue within a sequence of dated civic bronzes from the conventus, and the Eusebeia type signals deliberate alignment of civic piety with Severan dynastic ideology at a moment when Septimius was still consolidating power after the civil wars against Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus.