Pompeiian Graffiti

Abstract / Riassunto

Italiano
Questo saggio propone un cambio di prospettiva nello studio dell’arte romana: non più soltanto lo sguardo dall’alto dei monumenti imperiali e delle committenze aristocratiche, ma quello “dal basso”, della plebe. Attraverso rilievi funerari, mosaici domestici, larari, ex voto, graffiti e caricature, viene ricostruito un universo visivo alternativo, fatto di dignità del lavoro, affetti familiari, devozioni quotidiane e ironia corrosiva. L’arte plebea non è “minore” né marginale: è un’arte di vita, più che di bellezza. Se l’arte ufficiale celebra la gloria e l’eternità, quella plebea racconta la sopravvivenza, i legami, le speranze e le paure di milioni di uomini e donne comuni.

English
This essay offers a shift in perspective in the study of Roman art: not only the top-down view of imperial monuments and aristocratic patronage, but also the “bottom-up” perspective of the plebs. Through funerary reliefs, domestic mosaics, lararia, votive offerings, graffiti, and caricatures, it reconstructs an alternative visual universe made of dignity of labor, family bonds, daily devotions, and corrosive irony. Plebeian art is neither “minor” nor marginal: it is an art of life, rather than beauty. If official art celebrates glory and eternity, plebeian art tells the story of survival, connections, hopes, and fears of millions of ordinary men and women.

The curious thing about Pompeii is that none of the wealthy Villas with household gods have a kitchen, allegedly to prevent fire, but indulged in hypocausts, underground heating systems for baths. (1) (2) (3) (2) Medjed or Oxyrhynchus elephant fish worshiped as Isis, the Fish Goddess, wearing the crown of cow goddess Isis-Hathor, lifting the Sun disc of Horus, denotes rebirth, a New Dawn. (1) The Roman Southwark Jug inscribed LONDINI AD FANVM ISIDIS - To London at the temple of Isis, personifies the goddess. Mosaic of urcei, Villa of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, Pompeii. Inscription "Aulus Umbricius Scaurus" is about Life (Aulus form Avle or Avile for Life); Umbricius means shadowy or dark, and Scaurus denotes Dark Beetle or Scarab (Scarabaeus sacer) = Rebirth=Eternal Life= like the Invincible Sun. Pompeii Special? Garum Fish Extract sold for 1000 sesterces per 12 pints. 1 Pliny, binding his fate with Pompeii, conflates the term Garum and calls it liquor drunk diluted like honey wine (Historia Naturalis 13.93). The poet Marcus Valerius Martialis, known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between 86 and 103 CE, congratulates a friend on keeping up amorous advances to a girl who had indulged in six helpings of Garum. 2 Seneca, cautioned against Garum: Do you not realize that garum sociorum (association), is an expensive bloody mass of decayed fish, consumes the stomach with its salted putrefaction?-(Seneca, Epistle 95.) At this point, life in Pompeii revolved around the Temple of Isis, the goddess of magic who steers life in the netherworld and conceived her son Horus, the infant sun god, by dismembered Osiris resurrected without his penis swallowed by the Nile fish, the carp or the Medjed elephant fish with a snout resembling Osiris penis thrown into the Nile. (2) Garum, a fish product with medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities associated with various foods, drinks, and other stuff with cultic value, could be tied to an extremely costly ritualistic consumption to attain immortality, endless life, or rebirth. The revered Nile fish Medjed, identified as the fish that ate Osiris' phallus, is named Oxyrhynchus by the Greeks, a homonym of the cult site of the Medjed elephant fish near Fayum oasis. Oxyrhynchus as a settlement of early followers of Christ, signified by ichthys, the fish symbol, resurrected Jesus from the chthonic waters, and additionally, espoused the Greek acronym/acrostic ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys) for Iesous Christos, Theou Yios, Soter (ησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ), which translates into English as Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection in the Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library, Egypt Exploration Society at Oxford includes the 3rd-century Oxyrhynchus Hymn (or P. Oxy. XV 1786), the earliest known manuscript of a Christian Greek hymn with both lyrics and musical notation.

The word cinaedus was used in Roman literature as a slur referring to a sex/gender variant of an imprecise kind, principally adult males who desired to be penetrated anally and/or who were effeminate. In this collection, scholars present differing views about the meaning and connotations of the word.

Neste trabalho, propomos uma tradução do latim para o português de grafites com temática amorosa organizados por Canali e Cavallo (1998). Objetivamos dar a conhecer o conteúdo em latim em um texto em português que, conquanto não reproduza agramaticalidades do texto de partida, mantenha a mesma atmosfera e o mesmo nível linguístico, motivo pelo qual se traduz palavras e expressões de baixo calão por equivalentes em português e se mantém truncados os trechos que assim se apresentam. Acompanham, ainda, notas pontuais, que servem à indicação de desvios da língua latina, a apontamentos de questões culturais ou esclarecimentos específicos. O trabalho contribui, portanto, para o conhecimento das camadas populares a partir da sua própria produção cotidiana.

The history of systematic exploration in the area of the Porta Stabia spans over a century; therefore the project incorporated a detailed examination of the zone’s complex archival dataset. This chapter describes past work at the Porta Stabia; outlines the methods by which the archival team located, accessed, and studied the records of that work; and provides an analysis of the corpus of finds, inscriptions, and paintings uncovered in the earliest excavations. “Excavating the archive” allowed the team to incorporate what can be known of the neighborhood at the time of the eruption in 79 CE with the earlier phases uncovered in the course of the subsurface excavation.

Partiamo da un dato di fatto: come altrove nel mondo romano, anche nella Pompei primo imperiale a saper leggere e scrivere era soltanto una percentuale tutt’altro che elevata della popolazione, una percentuale difficilmente quantificabile e sulla quale sarebbe opportuno focalizzare nuovamente i riflettori della ricerca. Scrivere era una professione, e i nobili dettavano, delegando l’atto pratico della scrittura a professionisti, a scribi, così come delegavano a loro subalterni incombenze di varia natura. Una firma autografa, però, è segno di una volontà nella stessa misura in cui un saluto può essere un segno personale. Firme autografe e saluti abbondano sui muri pompeiani: trovarne di nuovi negli ambienti che emergono dagli scavi in corso non sorprende. Un nome o una formula di saluto graffiti o dipinti nel bel mezzo di una parete, apparentemente senza nessuna ratio, catturano l’attenzione meno di raffinati dipinti ma hanno una pari e diversa forza comunicativa: i messaggi iscritti sulle pareti lasciano penetrare in segmenti di vita, lasciano intravedere gli uomini che vivevano quegli spazi, ne esprimono il sentire, le velleità, le voci (si veda, per esempio, Scappaticcio 2023, con bibliografia).

Los grafitos sobre cerámica de mesa cuentan ya con una dilatada tradición historiográfica. La mayoría suelen aparecer sobre cerámica sigillata y sobre cerámica de almacenaje. Sin embargo, también se encuentran en otros soportes como la llamada cerámica pigmentada o engobada. En este trabajo analizaremos qué tipologías de grafitos se representan en este soporte y qué coincidencias y diferencias se encuentran respecto al resto de tipologías, a partir del material recogido en el territorio de la actual Navarra. Las conclusiones presentan un hábito de marcado con semejanzas con otros tipos como la cerámica sigillata, pero también diferencias significativas, como la presencia de una mayor proporción de grafitos no textuales que textuales. Esto podría reflejar una composición diferente del perfil de usuario entre un tipo y otro y/o de la percepción que los usuarios tenían de unas piezas u otras.

Graffiti on tableware ceramics has a long historiographical tradition. They are mostly found on sigillata ceramics and storage ceramics. However, they are also present on other mediums such as pigmented or engobed ceramics. In this study, we will analyze the typologies of graffiti represented on this medium and explore the similarities and differences compared to other typologies, based on the material collected in the territory of present-day Navarre. The findings reveal a distinctive pattern with similarities to other types, such as sigillata ceramics, but also significant differences, including a higher proportion of non-textual graffiti compared to textual ones. This may reflect a different user profile and/or the perception that users had of different types of pottery.

both of oneself and of others' (Roman Homosexuality, 1999, 151; my emphasis). While G. acknowledges that 'control of the self, both in and outside of sex, was imperative' (16), he does not fully integrate this aspect of the communis opinio into his critique, which is aimed at a model of Roman manliness based solely on 'martial and political aggression' (19). In fact, many of the examples he proffers to illustrate the vir bonus or malus boil down to questions of self-control. Scipio Africanus and the Elder Cato were praised for various forms of restraint (47-50), whereas Catiline and Clodius were impugned as effeminate on the basis of their perceived lust for power (22-3). This overlap between the familiar prerogative of self-mastery and G.'s 'republican masculinity' obscures, though by no means vitiates, the distinctiveness of the latter. Considering the performance of masculinity by people other than male aristocrats would also have helped G. identify precisely what, if anything, was characteristically 'manly' about the subordination of personal interests to the public good. For instance, G. depicts poor urban voters as a body that 'cared only for action, and for active men, not the ner points of republican principle' (88); but the populus regularly overrode the senate on matters of principle,

Neste trabalho, propomos uma tradução do latim para o português de grafites com temática amorosa organizados por Canali e Cavallo (1998). Objetivamos dar a conhecer o conteúdo em latim em um texto em português que, conquanto não reproduza agramaticalidades do texto de partida, mantenha a mesma atmosfera e o mesmo nível linguístico, motivo pelo qual se traduz palavras e expressões de baixo calão por equivalentes em português e se mantém truncados os trechos que assim se apresentam. Acompanham, ainda, notas pontuais, que servem à indicação de desvios da língua latina, a apontamentos de questões culturais ou esclarecimentos específicos. O trabalho contribui, portanto, para o conhecimento das camadas populares a partir da sua própria produção cotidiana.

English translation of the section, "Residents of the House" detailing conclusions drawn by archaeologists about the owner of the House of the Bear and their social status, drawn primarily from election graffito across Pompeii as described in the text "Hauser in Pompeji: Volume 2 edited by Wolfgang Ehrhardt, part of the Hauser in Pompeji project overseen by Volker Michael Strocka.

The study and publication of inscriptions involves the analysis of many different pieces of information  related  to “places”:  from  data  on  the  archaeological  discovery,  the  original location, the place of preservation, up to all the geographical or topographical references contained in the epigraphic text or related to its historical context. The representation of spatial data in Digital Epigraphy projects, and in particular in online corpora, is nowadays of undeniable importance and has led to an increasing attention in research to the aspects of archaeological context, urban topography or historical geography present in the inscriptions. This can be interpreted in the more general framework of the “spatial turn”that has affected classical studies as well as all the human and social sciences, in parallel with the development  of  information  technologies  applied  to  Geography,  Cartography,  and  Ancient Topography, from GIS to the opportunities offered by the Semantic Web and Linked Open Data.This article aims to offer the reader a reasoned overview of the major issues and practices related to the encounter between Epigraphy and Geography / Topography in the digital environment, through the examination of a series of digital projects considered particularly illustrative in this purpose.

The city of Pompeii, or Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeiorum, the stage of the action that takes place here, is seen by the author from the perspective of its integration in the macro-economic system of the Roman Empire. The characters that take the centre stage here are slaves, freed slaves and free citizens of low social status, distinguished from others by the place they occupy within relations of oppression and exploitation. In the pages that follow, the author brings the popular Pompeian soul to life, through its manifestations of love, sexuality, anguish and sadness. The work examines particular linguistic expression of popular Latin and, most specifically, through the graffiti written on the walls of a Roman colonial city, rendered there for the attention of the local community.

This chapter opens the volume on _Cultic Graffiti in Late Antiquity and Beyond_, edited by A. Felle and B. Ward-Perkins, a research product of the project: Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity.
It analyzes the presence of writing in religious spaces of Pompeii - both household shrines (often called lararia) and public neighborhood shrines on street corners (or arae compitales). Household shrines feature graffiti naming divinities and can also serve as a locus for memory. Neighborhood shrines might contain prayers to be uttered aloud, but also host a wide spectrum of writing and even writing in a variety of materials (such as easily erasable charcoal).

A commentary on Unit 4 (readings A-G) of the Reading Latin text (Provincial corruption: The Verres scandal of 73–71) designed to highlight various features of the readings and provide students with further background to enrich their experience of the text.

This commentary is intended to encourage intermediate students to delve into one of the most powerful books of Vergil's Aeneid. Book 10 offers a splendid study of the moral complexities of war and plays a crucial role in the moral economy of the poem as a whole. It also presents a much more Iliadic Vergil than readers of, e.g., Aeneid 1, 2, 4, and 6 will have experienced. Not all of Book 10 will be to everyone's taste (the lengthy catalogues and set-pieces can be rough going the first time through); my hope, however, is to have provided students with enough assistance to allow them to read and enjoy the book as a whole with relative ease while also developing their familiarity with Latin verse. Some caveats are in order: 1) First-time readers of Vergil's poem are advised to begin with Clyde Pharr's edition of Books 1-6. Dated as that edition is, it provides a much more systematic set of tools (vocabulary, grammatical notes, a simplified Latin grammar) to help beginning students come to terms with what it is to read Vergilian epic. 2) Intermediate students should consult Williams, whose commentary reflects the virtues of that age of scholarship: learned, succinct, and eminently helpful. Page, who representes an earlier generation, is also quite useful. 3) More advanced students should turn to Harrison's commentary which addresses the most challenging syntactical points but focuses on more nuanced matters of the text, diction, meter, theme, literary models, and so forth. One of the main goals of my own work is to produce students who are prepared to benefit from Harrison's insights.

In this article, I use two methodologies, Decorrelation Stretch (DStretch) and archival research, to propose a new transcription for a painted inscription from Herculaneum: CIL IV.10479. In addition to this new transcription, I show the immense promise and capability of DStretch to visualize painted inscriptions. While DStretch has been applied to pictographs and wall paintings at various sites, to my knowledge it
has never before been applied to Campanian graffiti or dipinti. This process, especially when coupled with archival research, allows us to visualize the letters of the inscription and, subsequently, provide a new reading of the text. The results suggest that DStretch should hereafter be the standard methodology for presenting and visualizing painted inscriptions.

1. Den Begriff "Oral Poetry" bringt man im Rahmen der Klassischen Antike gewöhnlich mit Homer in Verbindung, nicht aber mit den lateinischen Carmina epigraphica an den Wänden Pompejis. Dennoch gibt es m.E. in diesen inschriftlich erhaltenen Texten Merkmale, die erstaunlich stark an die mündliche Dichtungstechnik erinnern, wie sie die "Oral-Poetry"-Theorie beschreibt. 2 Dies möchte ich dem Aspekt der "cultura letteraria" (Gigante 1950), unter dem die pompejanischen Gedichte bisher ausschließlich betrachtet worden sind, ergänzend gegenüberhalten. Neben der mündlichen Dichtungs t e c h n i k ist für eine "Oral Poetry" zudem ein Fundus mündlicher poetischer Tradition unabdingbar. Pflicht und Ziel der folgenden Ausführungen ist es demnach, nicht nur Anzeichen der betreffenden Technik in den pompejanischen Carmina epigraphica herauszuarbeiten, sondern auch einen solchen poetischen Fundus plausibel zu machen.

Tracce della poesia ovidiana (citazioni e allusioni) tra i graffiti pompeiani. Queste testimonianze, particolarmente interessanti anche perché riguardano un periodo abbastanza precoce della fortuna di Ovidio, ci lasciano intravedere la vitalità della sua poesia anche al di fuori delle élites più colte e raffinate con le quali spesso noi lettori moderni tendiamo a identificarci. La vita culturale di Pompei, evidentemente, doveva essere piuttosto vivace, se riverberava anche in un ambito tendenzialmente casuale e poco aulico come quello delle iscrizioni graffite sui muri. E di questa vita, la poesia ovidiana era un elemento importante.

From the first century AD onwards public entertainment was used as a common method of political promotion by the local elite in the cities outside of the city of Rome. The graffiti preserved at Pompeii referencing these spectacles promoting politicians illustrate how public entertainment proved to be a valuable method of public exposure for ancient politicians. Inscriptions would be commissioned to record and promote these acts of public generosity. This research examines these inscriptions with the aim to reconstruct individual costs and scale of gladiatorial, beast-hunt, chariot, and theatrical entertainment in the Roman Empire. By taking these individual prices and analysing them in relation to ancient literary evidence it is possible to depict not only the infrastructure of Imperial period entertainment in the Roman Empire, but to also draw conclusions on the individuals responsible for organising these spectacles.

The Asinaria ("Comedy of the Asses") deserves to be better known than it is. While it cannot claim to be Plautus' greatest play, it displays a number of interesting features, particularly in its treatment of stock scenes and characters, and offers some truly hilarious moments. From the point of view of the beginning Latin student, it has the additional virtue of presenting a relatively straightforward text, with few lyrical passages (only one, in fact, of the most rudimentary form) and relatively few textual difficulties to sort through. It is, in effect, boiled-down Plautus. This edition is intended to assist senior students who are reading Plautus for the first time. It is very much a bare-bones commentary that focuses on the play itself. Thus I have omitted the standard general introduction to Plautus, his times, Roman comedy, the stage of Plautus, etc., useful accounts of which are available in a variety of sources (some of which I point to in my initial bibliographic notice). The emphasis is on getting students into the text itself by providing them with a detailed account of grammatical constructions, forms, and idioms in a manner that will help them to translate the play and, at the same time, develop their ability to read Latin accurately and analytically. It strives, in particular, to help its readers become familiar with Plautine diction, orthography, and word-order, and to encourage the use of a grammar (in this case, Allen and Greenough) in the study of a Latin text. 1 A general introduction to the meters of the play is provided as well, but with the knowledge that helping students to develop a firm command of that subject requires a great deal more than I present here. The same holds for the historical features of Plautus' language: where I will quite happily refer to a particular form as the "archaic" equivalent of a form with which the student is familiar, or claim that suchand-such a form "equals" a form that he/she memorized in first-year Latin, the more advanced commentaries set out a much more complex, and interesting, picture; I have generally ignored such issues, or settled for a reference to a more detailed discussion in de Melo 2007a or elsewhere. And while I give due attention to the differences between Plautus' syntax and that of the standard classical prose authors, I attempt, where possible, to make sense of Plautus' language in terms that recall the basic rules and concepts that the student learned in first-and second-year Latin. Throughout, I have attempted to habituate studentsin a useful way, I hopeto some of the technical language employed in scholarly discussions of, e.g., grammar, syntax, and metrics. My intention in this is not to display "a love to parts," but to supply students with skills and resources that they will find useful as 1 I have also included references to the relevant sections of Lindsay and (more sparingly) Bennett passim: dated as those works are, and difficult for the modern student to work through, the material they bring together and the analyses they offer remain quite useful. vi they proceed farther in their studies and begin to delve into scholarly treatments of such matters in more detail. The notes privilege those sources that are available on line, in some fashion, and that are therefore accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and/or mobile device that can employ apps. They also, to a certain extent, attempt to privilege sources in English over those in other languages. Thus, e.g., I try to cite Lewis and Short much more commonly than the Oxford Latin Dictionary, and (on basic points of syntax) Gray more often than Hurka. In a similar vein, I attempt to highlight more recent scholarly studies of Plautus, in English, in the hope of encouraging students to explore recent work in the field, but have often been led to cite older works, many in other languages, 2 in order to direct more advanced students to useful resources and/or provide a sense of the history of a specific issue. The text employed here follows de Melo in most respects, with the occasional divergence (App. I). The general discussions of Plautus' language and meters that follow the commentary draw extensively on the work of others and make no claim to originality. Particular thanks are owed to Professor Bret Mulligan of Haverford College for permission to include his quite useful overview of characteristic features of Plautus' language. But I have also incorporated a good amount of material in these sections from Gray's commentary (now in the public domain) and relied heavily on the work of MacCary and Willcock, Halporn, Hammond, et al. The glossary relies heavily on the on-line edition of Lewis and Short cited in the commentary and on Whitaker's WORDS application. This is, in the end, a commentary that its readers should quickly outgrow: the majority of those students who are ready to approach Plautus are, in fact, unlikely to need assistance with all of the grammatical constructions that it documents. But, in the desire to reach the broadest possible audience, and not being able to predict what sections of the text a reader might choose to examine, I have attempted to be consistent in my approach throughout and to foster, even in the more advanced students, an appreciation of the need to be cognizant of the grammatical structures that inform even relatively straightforward passages. Where I have erred in this regard, it is in an attempt to avoid that age-old complaint that one hears in regard to every student commentary: that the commentator has remarked on everything in a particular passage except the question that the student needed answered. 3 2 Citations of scholarly works in languages other than English are marked with a •. (Not included in this category: standard commentaries and reference works cited by author's name alone or via an abbreviation.) 3 I cannot say just how old this complaint might be, but it certainly reaches back to Donne's day: "he'impaires / His writings, and (unwatch'd) leaves out, ses heires / As slily'as any Commenter goes by / Hard words, or sense" (Satyre 2, lines 97-100). x grammatical terms and constructions, as well as figures of speech, to help readers review some basic elements of Latin syntax and expression that are of particular importance: 5 https://www.academia.edu/44262427/Overview_of_Select_Grammatical_Terms_and_Constructions_Figures_of_Speech 'Quis leget haec?'-Vel duo vel nemo. I am well aware that the above approach will not be to everyone's taste, and of how often I treat of matters that will be of use only to the beginning student. Many of my readers will find much here to skip over, while many instructors are likely to find my labeling of constructions hide-bound, superfluous, or insufficiently precise. As students, we encounter various ways of approaching the study of Latin, in the different instructors with whom we study and the different texts we employ. My hope is that this commentary will add to that repertoire in providing my readers with a particular perspective and assisting them to develop a specific set of skills and habits on which they can build in their future studies. 5 The relevant constructions and figures are flagged in the commentary via an asterisk (*). lover, anticipating several of the tropes of later Roman love elegy but also figures such as Shakespeare's Andrew Aguecheek (Twelfth Night). The terms of the contract having been finalized, the two enter Cleareta's establishment. After a brief interlude, the pair return onto the stage. Diabolus has found Philaenium partying with Demaenetus and Argyrippus, and has been mocked at length by Demaenetus for having lost out in the race for Philaenium's attentions. Enraged, he sends his parasite to inform Demaenetus' wife of her husband's doings and departs angrily for home. Demaenetus, Argyrippus, and Philaenium come on stage and, assisted by mute attendants, assume their places at an elaborate drinking party (convivium). As Demaenetus begins to address his erotic attentions to Philaenium, he rebukes Argyrippus for putting on a sour face, reminding him that it is the responsibility of a dutiful son to display a proper reverence and modesty (verecundia) toward his father. Demaenetus' wife Artemona comes out of her house, led by the parasite. She expresses shock at the news of her husband's shameful behavior, and outrage at the thought that, rather than attending to business in the forum, he has been spending his time with harlotsand as a result has been too fatigued to attend to his husbandly duties at home. The fact that he is also involving their son in such shenanigans is an equal source of outrage. Artemona and the parasite eavesdrop as Demaenetus plays dice and drinks while flirting with Philaenium and casting a series of mocking insults against his wife. After a number of angry asides, Artemona finally bursts in among the revelers. The parasite takes this opportunity to depart, expressing a hope that he can arrange for Diabolus to share Philaenium's services with Argyrippusand thereby ensure the continuation of his own meal-ticket. The timorous Demaenetus attempts to placate his wife, undercut all the while by Argyrippus' protestations of his own disapproval of his father's behavior, and by Philaenium's coy allusions to the amorous advances with which Demaenetus has been courting her. Artemona sends her husband packing, while Argyrippus and Philaenium retire into Cleareta's house to enjoy their triumph. The play was condemned by early modern critics for the immorality of Demaenetus' scheme, as well as for the various dislocations in the plotin particular, the alleged inconsistency in the portrayal of Philaenium and her relationship with Argyrippus (below). There are other curious features as well, most notably: • the entrance of Diabolusof whose existence the audience has had no prior noticeat 127, or (should that character be identified as Argyrippus)...

As is well known, the city of Pompeii and its surroundings were buried by the eruption of the Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. Since its discovery, this city has been a primary source for the study of Roman history and archaeology as well as for linguistic and epigraphic studies, thanks to the many texts preserved on the walls of many buildings in the city. They can be found anywhere: from private houses to streets, theatres, baths, tombs and other places. The wall-inscriptions are documents of incredible value for the study of the ancient world. Most of them are written in Latin, but we can also find examples of other languages that were used in the city, such as Oscan, Etruscan, Hebrew and Greek. Despite the fact that the number of Greek graffiti (ca. 240) is far below the number of Latin ones (ca. 12,000), both of them provide us with a number of Greek personal names, which represent a great opportunity to understand such an important group from the population of Pompeii. The date of these inscriptions has a terminus ante quem: the year 79 BC, with perfect accuracy. After the eruption of the volcano, the city remained buried until its excavation centuries later. In addition to this, considering the perishable nature of the painted and scratched inscriptions, we must assume that they do not predate the eruption by more than 50 to 80 years.