Roman Phalera, Medium Size, Silver

Phalera, Ornamental Disc

Medium sized phalera (ornamental disc) made of solid 925 silver (!) with a diameter of approx. 9 cm for use e.g. as a badge for Roman officers, as a furniture application or as decoration of a horse harness. The Phalera is available in two variants: Once with rivets for fastening (the delivery takes place without drillings, which you can set individually as required), or with a split pin fastening for leather with eyelets fastened on the back.

For the production, first a detailed model is made in wax, which is reworked by hand and then cast in metal in an elaborate and authentic casting process. After that, the blank is again intensively reworked by hand, sanded and polished. This is not thin sheet metal or a resin casting with a thin metal coating, but a very heavy and valuable work of solid silver with a diameter of about 90mm and a weight of about 120 grams.
These ornamental discs found versatile use as applications and badges of honor, especially in the military field. They are known mainly from gravestones of Roman centurions and officers who wore the insignia on a breastplate, but also horse harnesses of the 1st century were decorated with them. Identical phalerae are depicted on tombstones of Roman horsemen or officers, such as the stone of the field sign bearer Gnaeus Musius in Mainz.