Pair of Roman Bronze Lion Roundels with Handles

Exhibiting a rather handsome and charming faces, these lion-headed appliqués would have been used as doorknockers to the home of a Roman aristocrat. Indeed, some can still be seen in situ at the site of Herculaneum, the town fossilized by Vesuvius in 79 A.D. along with neighbouring Pompeii. His features are gentle and welcoming, but as they are those of a lion, it marks the high class of the inhabitants of whose doorway he sits; lion hunting was the legendary pastime of the Homeric heroes and other elite warriors, thus associating with them garnered a feeling of wealth and class.