'A copper pot has been taken from this shop. Whoever brings it back will receive 65 sesterces. If any one shall hand over the thief' ... (the rest of the inscription is illegible).
CHAPTER LVII
THE GRAFFITI
The graffiti form the largest division of the Pompeian inscriptions, comprising about three thousand examples, or one half of the entire number; the name is Italian, being derived from a verb meaning 'to scratch.' Writing upon walls was a prevalent habit in antiquity, as shown by the remains of graffiti at Rome and other places besides Pompeii, a habit which may be accounted for in part by the use of the sharp-pointed stylus with wax tablets; the temptation to use such an instrument upon the polished stucco was much greater than in the case of pens and lead pencils upon the less carefully finished wall surfaces of our time. Pillars or sections of wall are covered with scratches of all kinds,—names, catchwords of favorite lines from the poets, amatory couplets, and rough sketches, such as a ship, or the profile of a face. The skit, occasionally found on walls to-day,
'Fools' names, like their faces,
Are always seen in public places,'
has its counterpart in the couplet preserved as a graffito both at Pompeii and at Rome: Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis, Qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas,—
'Truly 'tis wonderful, Wall, that you have not fallen in ruins,
Forced without murmur to bear the taint of so many hands.'
Of a similar vein is a Greek line scratched upon a wall on the Palatine hill in Rome: 'Many persons have here written many things; I alone refrained from writing.'
Taken as a whole, the graffiti are less fertile for our knowledge of Pompeian life than might have been expected. The people with whom we should most eagerly desire to come into direct contact, the cultivated men and women of the ancient city, were not accustomed to scratch their names upon stucco or to confide their reflections and experiences to the surface of a wall. Some of the graffiti, to judge from the height at which we find them above the floor, were undoubtedly made by the hands of boys and girls; for the rest, we may assume that the writers were as little representative of the best elements of society as are the tourists who scratch or carve their names upon ancient monuments to-day. Nevertheless, we gain from these scribblings a lively idea of individual tastes, passions, and experiences.