When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., parts of the ancient city of Pompeii remained intact, including the graffiti written on its walls. Much of what was written, not unlike today’s bathroom etchings, is naughty and boastful, with people like Celadus the Thracian claiming to be the one who “makes the girls moan.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Ancient Graffiti”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in the first century, it covered the city of Pompeii,
And it left a lot of things intact, including ancient graffiti.
And I’ve been looking at some of the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, and it’s really fascinating.
It’s sort of a reminder that some things never change.
A lot of the graffiti is really personal.
It mentions people by name, like Celidus the Thracian makes the girls moan.
There’s a lot of naughty graffiti, if I remember correctly.
There’s a lot of awfully naughty graffiti that I can’t share on the air,
But these personal ones are really interesting.
A lot of it’s boastful, like 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.
Good going, felonious.
Yeah, right?
And then I really like this one.
It’s I’ve caught a cold.
That’s it?
Yes.
I’ve caught a cold.
Yes, and there’s something so touching to me about that.
Pituita me tenet.
I’ve caught a cold.
You know, it’s like when you’re sick and there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing anybody else can do, but you want people to know that you’re sick.
Yeah, hear me.
I don’t know.
There’s something really touching and also kind of funny about all of this.
I love ancient graffiti.
I have a colleague who is studying ancient graffiti in Greece, bringing her students around to do it.
But my favorite place for older graffiti, I won’t call it ancient, is the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
So there’s this whole temple that was built very like 19 B.C. Or something like that.
In it is 200-year-old graffiti left by Europeans who went to Egypt.
So it’ll be like soldiers and Egyptologists of the period who, you know, even though they were studying this culture and bringing these artifacts back, didn’t have a problem with leaving their mark on it.
You would never see a modern academic or soldier do that sort of thing.
Probably not.
Yeah.
Isn’t that something?
I mean, it’s just this human urge to leave our mark, to be seen, to be heard, right?
I guess now it’s in social media.
Right.
Yeah.
Social media is the natural extension of the handprints on the cave wall.
Yep, and some of that’s filthy too, but we won’t go there.
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