IWA

[Crispvs]

The pugio sheath still looks very good. Don't let them be tempted to use gold - there is no evidence for it, although I am sure that those in highly paid positions (if they used pugiones, which I am sceptical about) might have chosen to have gold decorated equipment. I do not believe that the rank and file would have had gold though. The silver for a pugio sheath would be fairly cheap (three or four denarii worth) whereas gold would be a different story altogether. This assumes of course that soldiers chose the decoration, rather than the craftsment executing the work choosing a style of decoration they prefered and were used to, which I think is more likely, before supplying them to the army. Copper alloy was relatively cheap, as was silver, but (based on coinage values), gold was around a hundred times more expensive. Thus it does not appear on the equipment which we find. What there was (if there was any at all) was too valuable to throw away, and thus we do not know how it would have been used.
The original Melun sheath may have featured both copper-alloy and silver but under the circumstances I would be absolutely satisfied with silver.

Crispvs