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Ancient graffitti from Pompei

December 13th, 2005 by Roy Berman		 Mutantfrog

I love seeing graffitti in different places, and these translations of ancient Roman graffitti found in the ruins of Pompei are both informative and hilarious. Here’s a random selection from around the middle of the page. Isn’t it amazing how much it’s like what you see scrawled on bathroom walls across the globe even today?

VI.14.36 (Bar of Salvius; over a picture of a woman carrying a pitcher of wine and a drinking goblet); 3494: Whoever wants to serve themselves can go on an drink from the sea.

VI.14.37 (Wood-Working Shop of Potitus): 3498: What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine

VI.14.43 (atrium of a House of the Large Brothel); 1520: Blondie has taught me to hate dark-haired girls. I shall hat them, if I can, but I wouldn’t mind loving them. Pompeian Venus Fisica wrote this.

VI.15.6 (House of Caesius Valens and Herennius Nardus); 4637: Rufus loves Cornelia Hele

VI.16.15 (atrium of the House of Pinarius); 6842: If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girl friend

VII (House of the Tetrastyle Atrium); 2060: Romula hung out here with Staphylus.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 10:45 am and is filed under Apocalypse, Europe, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    • 4 Responses to 'Ancient graffitti from Pompei'

    1. Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog Says:
      December 15th, 2005 at 7:09 am

      [...] There’s a few bloggers out there reproducing ancient humor for us: Mutant Frog pointed me to translations of Roman graffiti which make you wish that modern graffiti “artists” paid more attention to content that style. Philip Harland has begun (Thank You!) a series of translated ancient jokes that’s gotta find its way into my lectures somehow. It’s not ancient (to us; our students might feel differently) but the reposting of Woody Guthrie’s Great Historical Bum, includes a link to a great digitized primary source version (as well as links to alternate versions which illustrate what Pete Seeger called the “folk process.”) which could make for nice lecture fodder, too. [...]

    2. Mutant Frog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Ancient Romans proved to be pretty much as you always imagined them Says:
      December 17th, 2005 at 4:07 am

      [...] The image represents the first known depiction of a gladiator in such revealing attire. It adds to the evidence that ancient Romans viewed gladiators not only as fearless warriors, but also as sex symbols. It seems almost absurd that gladiators weren’t sex symbols. A couple of days ago I posted a link to some fantastic ancient Roman graffitti. Here is what was written about gladiators. II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8767: Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion. [...]

    3. Sally Beaverson Says:
      March 14th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

      this site is so cool. I love history. I got an A+ in social studies. Yeah Me! Well anywho i love this site! do you?

    4. Frog? Says:
      March 14th, 2006 at 6:28 pm

      Hey i typed in ancient roman graffiti in the browser and it took me here!?
      Shoot!Help me? anyone know a good site? Respond in this site’s comment post
      it’s due tommorow thank you very much

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