Tiberius AE 20 Spintria. 

Obv: Erotic scene
Rev: XV (or XI?) within dotted border, surrounded
by wreath 

4.25 gr, 20.00mm. 
Rare

Base d'asta: € 2'000,00 
deamoneta.com Auction October 2009, lot 306
October 2009

From "Notes on Spintriae from Salona in the Archaeological
 Museum in Split" 
Spintriae represent a special pseudo-monetary group among
 tesserae and are made of bronze, brass, copper, lead, bone, 
glass, or pottery, and are hence of interest primarily to
 numismatists. On the obverse, spintriae depict an erotic
 scene between two individuals, and on the reverse, in a
 laurel wreath with a dotted border a single Roman numeral, 
from I to XVI, sometimes preceded by the letter A; spintriae
 where the reverse is different are exceptionally
rare, for example with a number greater than XVI, and probably are not authentic. 

Spintriae are thus erotic tesserae, and the name was given to 
them by Renaissance antiquarians who knew of such objects as
 well as the written sources in which spintriae are 
mentioned, i.e. the works of Suetonius and Tacitus, Twelve
 Roman Emperors and Annals. Both Suetonius (Twelve Roman 
Emperors, Tiberius, 43) and Tacitus (Annals, VI. 1), however,
 use the word spintriae to refer to people. The antiquarians 
could have seen in the depicted individuals in various sexual
 poses the emperor’s favorites from the allegations by 
Suetonius and Tacitus. performing group sex, consisting of 
the participation of three to four men and women, and not, as 
had been thought, male prostitutes. According to this, true
 spintriae were not depicted on the spintriae. The spintriae
 depict copulation or fellatio between two individuals, male
 and female, and more rarely two men.
Tiberius’ supposed prohibition of the use of coins and rings 
with imperial figures in latrines and brothels (Suetonius,
 Twelve Roman Emperors, Tiberius, 58) is to a great extent
 the basis of the use of spintriae as payment in brothels. 
The most eloquent supporters of this hypothesis are Simonetta
 and Riva, who on the basis of obscure sources, and even the 
silence of sources, Suetonius and Martial, and comparisons 
with frescos from Pompeii, date them to the reigns of
 Vespasian and Domitian.
If spintriae were methods of payment, their reverses could 
denote values in asses from one as to sixteen asses,
Considering the established connection between the sprintriae
 or erotic tesserae and those with imperial figures,
their use as payment in brothels and elsewhere is rejected,
 and attention is redirected to the reverse, with its number,
and they are considered to have been gambling tokens.