Ancient Roman Graffiti:

So… nothing, cracks me up like Ancient Roman graffiti of the sort found in Pompeii. It’s the sort of silly, raunchy, sometimes sweet, sometimes horrible, epigraphy that gives us a glimpse into the psyche of ancient peoples like very little else does. It shows how, though humanity’s circumstances may have changed, humans have not. And that’s the reason to study history, for me.

These are a few examples-

Here are some of the sweet ones:

I.7.8 (bar; left of the door); 8162: We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.

I.10.7 (House and Office of Volusius Iuvencus; left of the door); 8364: Secundus says hello to his Prima, wherever she is. I ask, my mistress, that you love me.

V.1.26 (House of Caecilius Iucundus); 4091: Whoever loves, let him flourish. Let him perish who knows not love. Let him perish twice over whoever forbids love.

VII.2.48 (House of Caprasius Primus); 3061: I don’t want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world

A few of the silly or random:

II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8792: On April 19th, I made bread

III.5.1 (House of Pascius Hermes; left of the door); 7716: To the one defecating here. Beware of the curse. If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.

VI.11 (on the Vico del Labirinto); 1393: On April 20th, I gave a cloak to be washed. On May 7th, a headband. On May 8th, two tunics

VII.1.40 (House of Caesius Blandus; in the peristyle of the House of Mars and Venus on the Street of the Augustales); 1714: It took 640 paces to walk back and forth between here and there ten times

VIII.7.6 (Inn of the Muledrivers; left of the door); 4957: We have wet the bed, host. I confess we have done wrong. If you want to know why, there was no chamber pot

VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1904: O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin.

And the raunchy ones:

VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1882: The one who buggers a fire burns his penis

I.2.20 (Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio); 3932: Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!

III.5.3 (on the wall in the street); 8898: Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog

V.5.3 (barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators; column in the peristyle); 4289: Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls

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.

VII.9 (Eumachia Building, via della Abbondanza); 2048: Secundus likes to screw boys.

Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths); 10675: Two friends were here. While they were, they had bad service in every way from a guy named Epaphroditus. They threw him out and spent 105 and half sestertii most agreeably on whores.

People don’t change. We scratch our names into a wall and hope someone remembers us – we try to make each other laugh, or make each other mad, and all we’ve managed to do with modern technology is find new ways to do that. But when it comes down to it, we’re one step up from scratching “Figulus loves Idaia” on the House of the Vibii. How can that idea not make you smile?