In the East the character of Artemis was different from her Greek counterpart. At Ephesos she was worshipped as the great mother-goddess. She also had a lunar aspect, presiding over childbirth. In the above roundel she holds the symbols of her power over life and death, the torch and the bow and arrow. She could destroy mortals with her well-aimed arrows, as could her brother Apollo. Apollousa (the destructress) and Iocheaira (who likes to let fly her arrows) were two of her epithets. The cult of Artemis the Torchbearer was particularly strong at Ephesos where a number of statues were dedicated in the great temple there, cf. G. M. Rogers, The Sacred Identity of Ephesos, London, 1991, pp. 161-162.

The exact function of these roundels is uncertain; possibly they were used as phalerae (cf. Exhibition Catalogue, Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 140, p. 195)