★ The Synedrion of the Neoi ★

PHRYGIA. Laodicea ad Lycum. Pseudo-autonomous issue. AE (Bronze, 27 mm, 8.54 g, 6 h), time of Caracalla to Elagabalus, 198-222. ϹΥΝЄΔΡΙΟΥ ΝЄΩΝ Diademed and draped bust of the New Synedrion to left, holding two scepters. Rev. ΛΑΟΔΙΚЄΩΝ ΝЄΩΚΟΡΩΝ Winged Eros reclining to right on rocks, propping his head on his left hand and holding arrow (?) in his right hand; to left, torch. RPC VI 5497. BMC 132. Very rare. Some roughness, otherwise, nearly very fine.

From a European collection, formed before 2005.

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').