ABSTRACT
The inclination of literate man to write on any available surface, with or without authorization, is a perennial habit and, sometimes, a nuisance. The passerby at Pompeii, Herculaneum and elsewhere expressed on the walls his opinions on many subjects: the drink on offer at a bar, the quality of a brothel, hopes and aspirations, love gained and lost, 1 letters of the alphabet, quick arithmetic calculations, lines of Vergil and other literary quotations, praise or dislike of the emperor, today’s date, messages to friends. ‘I’m amazed, wall,’ wrote one humourist at Pompeii, ‘that you have not collapsed under the weight of so many boring scribblers.’ 2 The messages written on the walls of public baths confirm the indications from literature that a wider variety of activities took place there than simply washing. 3 The range of obscenities encountered is breathtaking. 4 A satisfied user of a latrine at Pompeii lauds the achievement of a good bowel movement. 5 In Plautus’ play Rudens (The Rope), the slave Gripus, who has found a trunk brimming with gold and silver, proposed to put notices up ‘all over town, in huge letters, a cubit high’, seeking the owner. 6 In Domitian’s reign, a humourist, reacting to popular dissatisfaction at the number of arches (arcus) the emperor had constructed to publicize his military successes, scribbled the Greek word arkei (enough) on one of them. 7
