This is a decorative silver bowl, or patera, from a cache of fine show plate and silverware unearthed in 1895 at Boscoreale, about two miles northwest of Pompeii. I was discovered along with 108 other pieces of silver and over one thousand pieces of gold, secreted in an oblong wine vat of a sumptuous villa. The owner or custodian of the objects had sought refuge there, and his skeleton was found lying alongside the treasure.