Nicomedia had served as a primary imperial residence since Diocletian rebuilt it as an eastern capital in the 280s, and its mint remained one of the most productive in the east well into the fifth century. By 401–403, Arcadius was emperor in name while the general Eutropius — and later the praetorian prefect Anthemius — exercised the real administrative machinery. The CONCORDIA AVGG type was explicitly propagandistic, projecting a fiction of harmony between the eastern and western courts at a moment when Stilicho and Constantinople were in open political conflict over the prefecture of Illyricum.
Nicomedia had served as a primary imperial residence since Diocletian rebuilt it as an eastern capital in the 280s, and its mint remained one of the most productive in the east well into the fifth century. By 401–403, Arcadius was emperor in name while the general Eutropius — and later the praetorian prefect Anthemius — exercised the real administrative machinery. The CONCORDIA AVGG type was explicitly propagandistic, projecting a fiction of harmony between the eastern and western courts at a moment when Stilicho and Constantinople were in open political conflict over the prefecture of Illyricum.