PHRYGIA. Docimeium. Pseudo-autonomous issue. Assarion (Bronze, 21 mm, 4.95 g, 5 h), time of the Antonines, 138-192. ΔΟΚΙΜΟС Laureate head of Dokimos to right. Rev. ΔΟΚΙΜЄΩΝ Asklepios standing front, head to left, leaning right on serpent-entwined staff. BMC 7-9. RPC IV online 8136. An unusually attractive example of this interesting issue with a fine near black patina. Good very fine.

Dokimos was a subordinate officer of Alexander and a typical diadochic 'condottiere'. He successfully switched sides several times between the more powerful generals and eventually died (from natural causes?) when he was in control of Pergamon sometime after 302 BC. A few years earlier he had been satrap of Phrygia and it was then that he founded Dokimeion, a Macedonian military colony bearing his name. The place apparently was of little importance - Strabo called it a 'kōme', a village, in Augustean time - but the locals were proud of their Macedonian heritage and issued coins such as ours, showing their eponymous founder, and others with the expanded ethnic ΔΟΚΙΜΕΩΝ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΩΝ