Ancient Romans Speak---Through Graffiti

Today most people think of graffiti as something to be painted over as soon as it appears, but, perhaps in years to come, it may be a vault of knowledge about our popular culture. This has been the case for Roman graffiti that was scratched into the plaster of pubs, homes, brothels, tombs and workshops. So vital is it for understanding the pop culture of ancient Romans, that over 180,000 such inscriptions have been collected and catalogued in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of
Sciences and Humanities. The collection is called the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, or “the Corpus,” and researchers throughout what had been the Roman Empire are still copying carvings and engravings from tumbled and recycled stones. Scholars have made remarkable insights into the everyday lives of Rome’s common folk.

So what kind of tidbits were scratched into Ancient Rome’s plaster? Brags about the quality of one’s vinyard; a man’s infatuation with his girlfriend; laments for a dead child, recommendations for certain prostitutes; advertisements for baked goods; prayers from gamblers and gladiators, and curses cast upon thieves.

So next time you’re in a restroom and see the writing on the wall, think about how a researcher in the future may use it to speculate about who we were.