User:Jacques Blac/Roman graffiti

(Note for editor: I am adding some of the prior article to try and blend my research in easier. I am not doing this for the entire draft but only the parts that concern my separate research)

Head
In archaeological terms, graffiti (plural of graffito) is a mark, image or writing scratched or engraved into a surface. There have been numerous examples found on sites of the Roman Empire, including taverns and houses, as well as on pottery of the time. In many cases the graffiti tend toward the rude, with a line etched into the basilica in Pompeii reading "Lucilla made money from her body," phallic images, as well as erotic pictures. Other forms of graffiti took the form of more innocent nature taking the form of simple pictures or games. Although many forms of Roman graffiti are indecipherable, studying the graffiti left behind can give a better understanding of the daily life and attitudes of the Roman people with conclusions drawn about how everyday Romans talked, where they spent their time, and their interactions within those spaces.

Graffiti Samples
Inscriptions cover a range of topics from poems, advertisements, political statements, to greetings. There are two forms of graffiti: painted inscriptions (usually public notices) and inscribed inscriptions (spontaneous messages). Many forms of graffiti also give insight to what certain locations acted as during the Roman Empire.

Pompeii
Over 11,000 graffiti samples have been uncovered in the excavations of Pompeii. Archaeologists have been studying and recording graffiti in Pompeii since the 1800s. These documentations remain the best evidence of over 90 percent of recorded graffiti from the area, which has not survived the elements. Most of the graffiti archeologists were able to uncover took the form of friendly messages and games that required roman numerals. Many of these recorded graffiti were found in very public areas such as stairwells and entrances. Due to the simple nature of the graffiti, many archeologists were early to dismiss the importance of the wall writings as it concerned life in ancient Pompeii. However this thought pattern changed with the discovery of the House of Maius Castricius.

House of Maius Castricius
This domestic residence shows that ancient graffiti was not limited to the public sphere, as graffiti is in modern day. This site, discovered in the 1960s, has benefited from preservation efforts, leaving the graffiti samples in their original context and remain legible. There is a unique feature of eleven graffiti containing multiple lines of poetry. For the most part, the poems are arranged vertically and respect the space of the others. This mix of original work and common phases are not a miscellaneous group because of the number and composition; instead, it appears that a conversation has formed.

One passage on the staircase reads: vasia quae rapui, quaeris formosa puella

accipe quae rapui non ego solus; ama.

quisquis amat valeat Which translates to: Beautiful girl, you seek the kisses that I stole.

Receive what I was not alone in taking; love.

Whoever loves, may she fare well. Many of the inscriptions found in the House of Maius Castricius that blend both image and writing have been ignored by archeologists due to errors in the form of documentation. The methodology used by the archeological department responsible for recording the House of Maius Castricius site have focussed on primarily deciphering the latin and greek texts of the graffiti but have no clear way of interpreting images that have no clear description accompanying them.

Ovid's Heroides 4
One finding in Pompeii that was uncommon was a literary-based inscription referring to Ovid's Heroides 4. Heroides 4 was a poem about the Greek character Phaedra falling in love with her husband's son, Hippolytus. This graffiti found in particular was located next to a painting describing the Roman mythical version of Pompeii. Similar to the House of Maius Castricius, there have been few ways to interpret images to graffiti, however archeologists have used the Heroides 4 graffiti to show that general Roman citizens possibly were able to understand art in a refined manner, both for the literary reference as well as the painting of Pompeii.

Calos graffiti
One popular term found in many of the discovered graffiti walls in Pompeii was "Calos", a latin translation of the Greek word for beauty. Initially starting as a form of praise for upstanding citizens in greek pottery, Calos found its way into becoming a popular Pompeian graffiti writing sometime during the first-century. Calos was typically used before someones name, for example:"'calos Castrensis'"translates to:"'beautiful Castrensis'"The Calos graffiti has been assumed by archeologists to have been used for listing sexual partners, describing sexual conduct, and prostitution specifically locations of brothels. Calos helps us understand some typical graffiti writings that citizens of Pompeii might have had strong association with.

Roman Market in Athens
An archeological excavation of the Roman market in the greek city of Athens discovered a nearly perfectly preserved row of columns that contain Roman graffiti. Many of the inscriptions have been interpreted by archeologists as pertaining to Christianity which began to become a popular religion in Athens later in the Roman Empire. Other inscriptions include possible names of writers that very from common Roman names to cryptic Roman names most likely to hide the author.

Another important theme that the graffiti in the Roman market holds is of a sexual nature. Some of the graffiti found is assumed to hold a mystical form as a sexual charm that either will grace the reader with pleasure or punish a former sexual partner. One particular description found at the market in particular is a curse placed on a woman by a former lover: I bind you, Theodotis, daughter of Eus, to the tail of the snake and to the mouth of the crocodile

and the horns of the ram and the poison of the asp and the whiskers of the cat and the forepart of the

god so that you cannot ever have intercourse with another man nor be f***** nor be buggered nor

fellate and not do anything for pleasure with another man, if it is not me alone, Ammonion, son of Hermitaris.

Games and Riddles
Word squares (magic square) and riddles are also common forms of the culture of graffiti. In addition to this, many games played through graffiti also use numbers through the use of Roman numerals. These show a level of mental agility and flexibility of language.

In Popular Media
Roman graffiti was parodied in the 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian in a particular scene where the character Brian is forced to write in latin "Romans go home".