ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a little-known image of sex from antiquity, an acrobatic sexual act involving three individuals, modelled as a miniature three-dimensional group on Roman-period knife handles found in Britain and Gaul. The scene is not derived from known Roman images of sex and may portray a theatrical show or similar spectacle. After describing the scene and considering its genesis, the author considers how the image was understood and experienced by contemporaries as a dynamic object, potentially embodying literary cultivation, spectacle partisanship, normative sexuality, and, in its incongruities, talismanic protection.
