★ The Synedrion of the Neoi ★

PHRYGIA. Laodicea ad Lycum. Pseudo-autonomous issue. Diassarion (Bronze, 25 mm, 8.21 g, 7 h), time of Elagabalus (?), 218-222. CYNЄΔPIOY NЄΩN Diademed half-length bust of the Synedrion of the Neoi to left, wearing cloak aroud his neck and holding two rods in his left hand. Rev. ΛΑΟΔΙΚЄΩΝ NЄΩKOPΩN Tyche standing front, head to left, holding patera, grain ears and inverted kerykeion in her right hand and cornucopiae in her left; at feet to left, wheel and rudder. Martin, Laodikeia 34.1 corr. = SNG Righetti 1195 corr. ( same dies, but kerykeion overlooked). RPC VI online -, cf. 5497 ( same obverse die, but differing reverse type). Extremely rare, apparently the third known example. An attractive and well struck piece of great historical interest. Holed, otherwise, very fine.

The Synedrion of the Neoi was the assembly of adolescents of a city between the ephebia and their full membership in the ekklesia, i.e. when they were roughly 20-30 years old. The organization mostly focused on athletic and military exercises in the Hellenistic era, however, by the time the Greek cities fell under control of the Romans, the role must have shifted away from preparing the youth of the polis for war. Although the exact task of the Neoi in the Roman era is hard to assess, public inscriptions in their name attest their continuous significance to the civic life of many Greek cities, perhaps most prominently so in Laodicea ad Lycum, where they even financed the present coin emission (CYNЄΔPIOY NЄΩN is to be read as '[coin of] the Synedrion of the Neoi').