spintria, Rome, 1st century BCE
This is a spintria. They were used in ancient Rome to request and pay for different “services” in brothels and from prostitutes on the street. As a cosmopolitan city, many visitors did not speak the language and most of the prostitutes were slaves captured from distant lands, so the coins made the transactions easy. One side of these coins showed what the buyer wanted and the other showed the amount of money to be paid for the act
Be seeing you.
all images from: Sloth Unleashed
There are other theories about spintriae:
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But whatever they were, it's cool to know about them.
Thanks Will!
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