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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;nicholasz219, post: 7651412, member: 75641&quot;][USER=99456]@Sulla80[/USER] Thank you for the mention and the excellent post.&nbsp; To me these coins are fascinating as well as the whole of the province of Moesia Inferior.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>After Trajan conquered Dacia in 106, it appears that the provinces of Thrace/Moesia became a relatively sleepy&nbsp; place with military outposts and small supportive settlements around them.&nbsp; Then during the time of Severus like [USER=110350]@DonnaML[/USER] mentioned, Moesia Inferior was created and there is an explosion of coinage from the towns there, in particular Nikopolis ad Istrum and Markianopolis.&nbsp; Under Commodus, for example, Varbanov lists 69 issues.&nbsp; Under Septimius, that number rises to over 600 not including issues of Severus and Domna, Severus and Caracalla, etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>My theory is that while most provincial towns remained relatively unimportant if they were provincial backwaters, the towns favored by the emperor could see a substantial increase in coin production. I think early support from the Balkan provinces during his campaign for emperor brought favor upon cities such as Nikopolis and Markianopolis whereas others such as Antioch in Syria who if not declared for, were in the unfortunate position of being in a province controlled by Pescennius Niger, were punished by heavy levies and restriction upon their coinage which would have a severe financial impact upon the city.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of this supposes that attention was paid to the particular towns by the imperial household but given the jockeying by various towns (Nicaea and Nicomedia come to mind) for honors such as the neokoros designation, I do not think the concept is that far fetched. Certainly the stationing of an army can drive up coin production (see Second Punic War in Spain) but I also suspect something else was at work.</p><p><br /></p><p>I’ve added several new coins of Markianopolis and Nikopolis since that post but I’ll spare everyone except a link:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=6295" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=6295" rel="nofollow">https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=6295</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Nick[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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