ABSTRACT
In any social context based on economic exchange, the literal meaning should be expanded to include an understanding of rudimentary mathematics. However, despite what appears to be a straightforward meaning, literacy in the ancient world remains a slippery quantity. In ancient Egypt levels of literacy were statistically insignificant. According to available evidence, specialists give estimates of 15 per cent of the population. Three centuries after the arrival of alphabetic writing in Greece, classical Greeks living in the fifth to fourth centuries BCE left a substantial body of literature. Graffiti incised during the archaic period provide a perspective on ancient Greek literacy that reflects a greater degree of social diversity than the evidence of formal inscriptions. The evidence of the verse-inscriptions in the epigraph represents a plethora of graffiti texts that display knowledge and understanding of reading and writing and the Roman poet Martial's satirical observation.
