Æ42 - Elagabalus ΔΙΟΝΥϹΟΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ ΤΟ Ο

Dionysopolis in Phrygia was a minor civic mint whose output under Elagabalus represents some of the latest coinage the city is known to have struck. The inscription ΤΟ Ο — indicating a second grant of neokoria or a similar civic honorific iteration — points to active negotiation between the city's elite and an imperial court that was, by 221–222, increasingly erratic. Elagabalus' religious impositions and political instability in Rome did not prevent provincial cities from pressing their claims for titles and privileges; if anything, the scramble intensified as his reign visibly faltered.