Ancient Rome's Racy Coins Weren't Money at All

Archaeologists digging through Roman ruins kept finding small bronze discs the size of coins, stamped with numbers on one side. They looked ordinary enough until someone flipped them over.

The other side showed explicit sexual scenes, rendered in surprising detail for something meant to fit in a pocket. Historians named these objects spintriae, and they've puzzled scholars for over a century.

Regular Roman coins carried emperors' faces and official seals, so these tokens clearly weren't meant to pay taxes or buy bread. Their purpose sat somewhere between novelty item and practical tool.

One popular theory suggests they functioned as brothel tokens, letting illiterate visitors point to a scene matching a service instead of describing it aloud. The number on the back may have tracked value or simply served as a room assignment.

Other historians push back, arguing spintriae circulated more like gaming pieces or party favors passed around at raucous Roman banquets. No brothel record or receipt has ever surfaced to confirm the transactional theory outright.

What's certain is that thousands of these tokens have turned up across the former empire, from Pompeii to the banks of the Danube. Museums today often keep them tucked away in separate storage, away from general coin collections.

Whatever their exact use, spintriae reveal a culture far less squeamish about sexuality than later centuries assumed. Rome apparently found nothing strange about literally minting the subject into pocket-sized art.