>While the Rabbis of the Talmud argued about the size of the flat Earth, the Greeks had determined the Earth to be a sphere, had calculated its circumference, and had moved on to other questions.
these were the "other questions"
the dodecahedron was the object said to represent the shape of the universe itself.
so the Romans, who considered the Greeks superior to themselves, and considered Latin a brute language and common read and wrote in Greek, idolized the Greeks. This object would have been an homage to the Platonic idea. It was an intellectual trinket. Like how you might see a Professor own a Globe in his study.