#modern pompeian graffiti

[richo1915]

Me scratching my name into the concrete of the tunnel we are building.

[wingardiumleafiosa-blog]

Last Week of Summer Courses

I have the final for my class on Pompeii and the cities of Vesuvius tomorrow! 

I have a series of potential essay prompts I’ll have to write about, so I’ll maybe write a paragraph about each that can potentially be expanded into a full essay here :)

PART 1

1) Considering what you’ve learned regarding the history of excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii from the early 18th century to the present, what are the pros and cons of further excavation at these sites? 

The excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii were done in destructive and haphazard ways. They used gunpowder to excavate the sites, looking for artwork to loot. If they didn’t deem it as being valuable enough to them, they quite literally threw it away. Not only did they not record their findings, or draw the art they discovered, but they actively discouraged the practice until much later. Modern archaeology has come a long way since then, and in my opinion, it seems that it would be a waste to stop excavating only after learning better methods. Excavation now is significantly less invasive, and recording findings is now easier than ever. The upside to continued excavation is that there’s still so much left to learn about these peoples and the way their society functioned. We have a lot of unanswered questions still, and further excavation could illuminate those answers. The downside is, of course, that preservation is painfully difficult. Conservation is already hard to manage for the sites, and adding more to worry about could spread the resources too thin.

2) What do you feel the priorities should be for archaeologists and Italian officials? Why? Ultimately, do you think we should continue to excavate the ancient Roman cities of Vesuvius? Why or why not?

I touched on this a bit above, but I think we should continue to excavate the ancient Roman cities of Vesuvius. There’s still so much left to discover, and it seems like a huge waste to stop excavations only after we finally learn less invasive techniques and have a more complete historical framework to place findings into. 

3) Based on what you’ve learned in regards to entertainment, religion, and bathing in Pompeii, discuss how the archaeological evidence from Pompeii reveals information about the lives and roles of women in Roman Campania. Feel free to discuss relevant buildings, artifacts, paintings, inscriptions, sculptures, monuments, and forensic evidence to help support your claims.

The House of Julia Felix shows that women could be wealthy and own property in Pompeii. She rented out these properties, as evidenced by surviving documents and advertisements found. Her property was filled with unique paintings and statues. Julia was an influential business woman, and her villa reflects this.

 Another woman with significant status in Pompeii is Eumachia. She married into a powerful family in Pompeii, and became the matron of the Concordia Augustus and the fullers, who constructed a statue in her honor. She funded the Building of Eumachia to gain even more status for her and her son, Marcus Fronto. Even her tomb was impressive; rather than a monument, she had a complete building to rest in.

 While these two women do show that social mobility and self-agency was possible, it was not the case for all women in Pompeii. Women were still denied the right to vote or hold office, nestling them between the upper-class and the slave-class. They could not sit in prime theater seats, and were relegated to stay with the slaves regardless of their own social status. 

They could become gladiatrices, however, and fight in the arena. They could participate in sports, and artistry portrays them running, throwing discus, and playing ball games. It’s not yet known how common this was; archaeologists and historians used to think it never even happened at all, but recent findings have debunked that.

 It is also still unknown how many brothels Pompeii had, but it’s highly likely that women and slaves were regularly used for sex. There is highly sexual graffiti, countless lewd wall paintings, and a tax on prostitution. Young girls were married off, with a premium placed on virginity. These all point to the likelihood of sex having been a thriving industry, but most women involved had little say in the matter. 

TL;DR

The life you held as a woman in Pompeii was related to your social status, but even if you belonged to the upper echelons of society, you wouldn’t have much agency in your life. Eumachia and Julia Felix did enjoy more freedom and luxuries than the average Pompeian woman, and they prove that social mobility was possible; just less common.

[btsresearchblog]

Bagnall, Everyday writing in the Graeco-Roman East, 2011

‘To anyone familiar with modern graffiti, it will not come as a surprise to find a considerable presence of sexual content. Despite popular imipressions formed by supposed brothel inscriptions, sex does not play a very large role in the Pompeian graffiti, nor in those from elsewhere. The erotic – if that is not too charitable a term to use – material from Smyrna is thus all the more noteworthy. Most of it comes in the unimaginative from the schematic­ depiction of the male genitals.’ - Page 19

‘The most clearly and completely preserved of these (Bay 27) is one saying φιλω ηζ δριθμδζ  

λτη, “I love a woman whose number is 1,308.” Crasis or careless omission of alpha? There are plenty of instances in the papyri of combination of the article with the vowel at the start of a word, and I think we should give our scribbler the benefit of the doubt. Another (Bay 24) says φιλω ηζ δ αριθμδ[ζ] ψλα, “I love one whose number is 731.”         - Page 22

“The practice of writing on walls is so universal that it almost qualifies as a human characteristic,” said The Economist (Dec, 18, 2004: 93).’ – Page 29

‘The Index of localities in Langer’s corpus includes more htan 120 places, some with multiple sub-titles. Only a few of these have been highly productive, the most important being Rome, Ostia, Pompeii, Stabiae, Delos, Ephesos, and Dura-Europos; but nothing suggests that the writing of graffiti was not universal.’ – Page 29

‘Langner’s observation that graffiti are almost entirely lacking from temples (at least temples still in operation) suggests that people in general were conscious of the presence of graffiti and recognized them as inappropriate in places of a solemn character.’ – Page 30

‘Franklin described the Pompeiian graffiti as “written almost entirely by Pompeii’s lower classes” (1991: 87) and divided them into two broad categories, which he described as “self-indulgent” and “informative,” groups he distinguishes essentially by the degree to which communication with anyone was important to the writer.’ – Page 30

‘Franklin does make a good case that the writers and readers of some Pompeian graffiti were working-class, including laborers and prostitutes (1991:97). That helps to delineate a lower zone in the graffito-writing population, but it is not enough to sustain the view that this lower-status group was responsible for most of the graffiti.’ – Page 31