accession to the throne and anniversaries and given on these occasions by the emperor to high-ranking dignitaries of the empire: they were mainly dishes, plates, cups, and bowls in silver.  The recipient may well be the official represented on the dish (possibly a generalized figure, especially if the design was made in several copies, which we cannot judge), and the find-spot in Spain, Theodosius's home province, suggests it was one of his Spanish friends or relations.

A missorium is a large dish or shallow bowl that could be used in ceremonial washing of hands and face in both secular and pagan and Christian religious contexts, though this dish is too flat to be very useful for this, and was probably intended mainly to be displayed as a signlimitations in terms of anatomical correctness, and a "soft, rubbery quality" in the nude bodies, the style has "an element of studied classicism" as well as "an insistence on clear, continuous and simplified outline, on neatness and regularity" in the figure of Terra/Tellus, so that "Classicist form is oddly paired with linear abstract order", the latter more prominent in the upper zone, to lend an air of authority and "timelessness and absolute stability" to the imperial figures that was not required below.

See also

Chronography of 354
Sevso Treasure

Notes

References
 Almagro-Gorbea, M., Álvarez Martínez, J.M., Blázquez Martínez, J.M., y Rovira, S. (eds.), El Disco de Teodosio, Estudios del Gabinete de Antigüedaes 5, Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, 2000  (in Spanish and other languages; includes Kiilerich, Meischner and Canto above).
Canto, Alicia