Spintria(e) (brothel tokens)

These bronze tokens show a sexual position on one side and its number on the other.

According to historians, they were used to pay for services in Roman brothels. At certain periods, as the emperor was regarded as a god, paying for sexual services with coins bearing his image would have been blasphemous. Tokens were therefore bought at the entrance of the brothel; clients then chose their partner and gave her the token in exchange for the service. It is also thought that these tokens made communication between client and prostitute easier: as some of the women were slaves and foreigners, they did not necessarily speak the client’s language.

I have 9 different tokens. They were all found in the same place, so they certainly come from the same establishment.