Æ42 - Commodus ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡΑ ΔΙΟΔΩΡοΥ ΠΕΡΓΑΜΗΝΩΝ Β ΝΕΟΚΟ

Pergamum held the title of neokoros — temple warden of the imperial cult — multiple times over, and this coin's reverse legend advertising a second such honor reflects the city's obsessive competition with Ephesus and Smyrna for provincial prestige. The designation ΔΙΟΔΩΡοΥ in the obverse legend names the strategos Diodoros, the local magistrate responsible for the issue, a common Pergamene convention that effectively dates the coin to his term of office. Pergamum had leveraged its early loyalty to Rome — and its famous library, eventually stripped by Antony for Cleopatra — into centuries of political capital that was still paying dividends under the Severan-adjacent reign of Commodus.