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by Linda Heaphy April 19, 2017
Everyone is now familiar with the release of quite explicit photos and service charges found on the walls of a brothel excavated at Pompeii, the resort town destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CCE. Now for your viewing pleasure comes a list of bawdy graffiti scrawled on the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which confirm, if we didn't already know it, that the Romans were people exactly like us, albeit slightly more obsessed with defecation...or on second thoughts, maybe not. Here is a summary of some of the funniest and rudest graffiti translated so far:
Tavern of Verecundus: Restitutus says: "Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates".
Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio: Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men's behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
House of the Citharist, below a drawing of a man with a large nose: Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this.
House of Cuspius Pansa: The finances officer of the emperor Nero says this food is poison (a 2000 year old restaurant critic!)
Bar: We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.
House and Office of Volusius Luvencus: Secundus says hello to his Prima, wherever she is. I ask, my mistress, that you love me.
Bar of Athictus: I screwed the barmaid (that's just boasting)
Pottery Shop or Bar of Nicanor: Lesbianus, you defecate and you write, 'Hello, everyone!' (the Romans really were obsessed with scatology)
Gladiator barracks: Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion.
Gladiator barracks: Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera.
House of Pascius Hermes: Watch it, you that shits in this place! May you have Jove's anger if you ignore this. (wow, more defecating!)
Street wall: Theophilus, don't perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog (reasonable advice methinks)
Exterior of a small house: Gaius Sabinus says a fond hello to Statius. Traveler, you eat bread in Pompeii but you go to Nuceria to drink. At Nuceria, the drinking is better (second ever restaurant critic?)
House of Cosmus and Epidia: Aufidius was here. Goodbye (classic but boring)
Just outside the Vesuvius gate: Shitter, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place (shitting again! What is it with these guys? Although as I get older, I do appreciate this advice)
Barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators: Celadus the Thracian makes the girls moan! (there's no praise like self praise)
On the Street of Mercury: Publius Comicius Restitutus stood right here with his brother (and did you take a shit?)
House of Sextus Pompeius Axiochus and Julia Helena: Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you (right back at ya)
Vico degli Scienziati: Cruel Lalagus, why do you not love me?
House of Orpheus: I have buggered men
Wood-Working Shop of Potitus, next to a bar: Would that you pay for all your tricks, innkeeper. You sell us water and keep the good wine for yourself (nothing's changed in 2000 years – today it's a glass full of ice and nothing else)
Atrium of the House of Pinarius: If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girlfriend (awww)
House of Caesius Blandus: It took 640 paces to walk back and forth between here and there ten times (ah, the voice of the pissed resonates across time)
Vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii Merchants: Atimetus got me pregnant (oops)
House of Caprasius Primus: I don't want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world (what about for the insurance money?)
Eumachia Building, via della Abbondanza: Secundus likes to screw boys.
The Lupinare: I screwed a lot of girls here (uh huh)
The Lupinare: On June 15th, Hermeros screwed here with Phileterus and Caphisus (obviously a popular place for casual sex)
The Lupinare: Sollemnes, you screw well! (more sex at the Lupinare)
Vico d' Eumachia, brothel: Gaius Valerius Venustus, soldier of the 1st praetorian cohort, in the century of Rufus, screwer of women (well you're in the right place)
Vico d' Eumachia, brothel: Vibius Restitutus slept here alone and missed his darling Urbana (awww again...)
Street of the Theaters: A copper pot went missing from my shop. Anyone who returns it to me will be given 65 bronze coins (sestertii). 20 more will be given for information leading to the capture of the thief (a reward poster!)
Above a bench outside the Marine Gate: If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.
In the bascilica: I could caress Venus's ribs with a stick, and whip her buttocks with a switch: she pierced my heart, and I would gladly break her head with a cudgel! (something highbrow for a change)
In the basilica: Phileros is a eunuch! (back to insults)
In the basilica: Epaphra, you are bald! (sticks and stones...)
In the basilica: Chie, I hope your haemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they ever have before! (ouch)
In the basilica: Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it's your right (no longer your right, yes we all know this is no longer politically correct)
In the basilica: Samius to Cornelius: go hang yourself!
In the basilica: The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian (a Visigoth? Or just an asshole?) Alternative translation: Someone at whose table I do not dine, Lucius Istacidius, is a barbarian to me (now that's just sour grapes)
In the basilica: The one who buggers a fire burns his penis (hmmm...deep words)
In the basilica: O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed you have not already collapsed in ruin (this is my favourite)
In the basilica: Epaphra is not good at ball games (he probably has other skills).
In the basilica: Lucius Istacidius, I regard as a stranger anyone who doesn’t invite me to dinner (me too)
Inn of the Muledrivers; left of the door: We have pissed in our beds. Host, I admit that we shouldn't have done this. If you ask: Why? There was no potty (Trip Advisor contributors, take note!)
House of the Centenary; in the latrine near the front door: "Secundus defecated here" three time on one wall (who writes about this kind of stuff?)
House of the Centenary; in the atrium: My lusty son, with how many women have you had sexual relations? (time to have THAT talk)
Triclinium of a house: Restitutus has deceived many girls (same Restitutus who asked Restituta to show us her hairy privates?)
Herculaneum bar: Two friends were here. While they were, they had bad service in every way from a guy named Epaphroditus. They threw him out and spent 105 and half sestertii most agreeably on whores (so the night turned out ok?)
Herculaneum bar: Apelles the chamberlain with Dexter, a slave of Caesar, ate here most agreeably and had a screw at the same time (not exactly at the same time I hope? Hang on, are you the guys who threw out Epaphroditus?)
Herculaneum bar, next to a drawing of a phallus: Handle with care
Herculaneum bar: Apelles Mus and his brother Dexter each pleasurably had sex with two girls twice (you two again).
Herculaneum, on a water distribution tower: Anyone who wants to shit in this place is advised to move along. If you act contrary to this warning, you will have to pay a penalty. Children must pay [number missing] silver coins. Slaves will be beaten on their behinds (this was obviously a very busy place)
Herculaneum, on the exterior wall of a house: Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, shat well here (but not, I hope, near the water distribution tower?)
Gladiator barracks: On April 19th, I made bread (is this some sort of euphemism for something else? Like shitting?)
Read sources of these graffiti here, here and here. Oh and also here. There are many other, far more explicit graffiti to be found on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the hard part is getting someone to actually document them in writing. If you have any other examples, please share. Ps Mary Beard, I love you.
References and Further Reading
Beard, Mary 2008. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town; ISBN 1-86197-516-3 (US title: The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found; Harvard University Press)
Harvey, Brian Graffiti from Pompeii
Ohlson, Kristin 2010. Reading the Writing on Pompeii's Walls
http://archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com/2009/10/studying-pompeiis-graffiti.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/erotic-art-in-pompeii
Addendum - an honourable mention:
Bar of Prima: (omg, someone turn this into a movie script!)
Severus: Successus, a weaver, loves the innkeeper’s slave girl named Iris. She, however, does not love him. Still, he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye.
Successus: Envious one, why do you get in the way. Submit to a handsomer man and one who is being treated very wrongly and good looking.
Severus: I have spoken. I have written all there is to say. You love Iris, but she does not love you.
May 30, 2023
The graffiti alone is fuel to the imagination of daily life in downtown ancient Rome – shits, screws, satiation and all.
May 30, 2023
Thanks for the reference material of quotes from Pompeii as I had only had one Quote previously
May 19, 2022
It’s kind of beautiful how people have not changed at all for thousands of years. This reads like forum shit posts. Tech changes (don’t have to shit in front of someone’s house anymore), cultures change, but people will always be the same.
March 25, 2022
Big ups
August 31, 2020
Does anyone have pictures of these? I want to hang up the one that says, “Shitter, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place” in my bathroom.
May 15, 2020
The graffiti admonishing other not to shit somewhere was written by residents sick of finding shit. Nobody want to be greeted by a pile when walking out the door. The ones who wrote about shitting in public probably did so to tease the people bothered by it.
December 20, 2019
If you saw the amount of graffiti in men’s stalls, the skat-script makes perfect sense
December 20, 2019
The sewer was every bit as important an invention as the aircraft or the TV.
July 17, 2018
2,000 years has changed very little in the art of graffiti. So glad they weren’t introduced to Facebook otherwise it would have been filled with trash talks, lupinare tales(wait, who doesn’t want it?) and defecation accusations which after all easier to delete!
December 15, 2017
Makes me wonder if the defecation text were written while the writers were actually shitting? Such acts could serve as a pastime, especially if your dump is slow to come out.
September 30, 2017
Yh there was a lot of screwing at the lupinare because a lupinare is an ancient roman brothel
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by Linda Heaphy May 10, 2017
Read MoreKashgar began through a love of travel.
In 1989 my father Bernard packed in his house painting business and set off for two years on a backpacking trek to the remotest corners of the world. When he finally arrived in the oasis city of Kashgar, China, he was so impressed with its history that he decided to start a new life collecting and selling exotic goods from all over the world. For 2000 years the legendary city of Kashgar was a melting pot of ideas and a key trading post on the historic Silk Road. It was this unique combination of philosophy and trade that my father wanted to recreate at home.
Starting in markets in 1991, he opened his first store in the Sydney suburb of Newtown in 1994. I gave up my own career as a government scientist to join him in 2000 and soon convinced my partner Ian to join us in what was to become the Family Business.
Today our version of Kashgar stocks a hugely diverse range of furniture, rugs, textiles, antiques, handicrafts and jewellery sourced from over twenty different countries including India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Thailand, Burma, Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Our collection includes contemporary and tribal silver and gold jewellery, a unique range of headhunting curios, antique Buddhist relics and a collection of one-off necklaces, earrings and bracelets that I design and create myself using the beads and jewellery making techniques of ethnic minorities from around the globe.
Kashgar is a philosophy as well as a store. We are committed to supporting traditional artisans and small village communities by selling authentic handcrafted goods which are personally collected by us. By supporting traditional methods of design and production we hope to encourage local cottage industries which have a low impact on the environment and help ethnic minorities maintain their self-sufficiency into the 21st Century. We are particularly committed to assisting women around the world and to this end have worked with several organisations including the Hua Bin Women's Union of Vietnam, the East Timorese Women's Association and Tikondane in Zambia. Time honoured means of craftsmanship and traditional ways of life are disappearing as people all over the world give up their identity in favour of jeans and T-shirts. We see our trade as a means of staving off the inevitable encroachment of the 21st century, assisting communities to decide for themselves which parts of the western world they wish to incorporate (medicine, education) and which they wish to reject (prostitution, drug production, begging and servitude to warlords). We encourage our customers to think of the handicrafts and artifacts they buy from us as an investment: a piece of history and a way of life that may soon be gone forever.
Kashgar has recently closed its retail outlet and gone completely online.
In the past our pieces appeared in many movies including The Hobbit, Mission Impossible 2, Queen of the Damned, Scooby Doo, Moulin Rouge and Wolverine, and in many televisions series, as well as in plays, commercials and exhibitions. We've found special pieces for individual customers as well as for film sets, event management companies, hotels, businesses, consulates and embassies. The uniqueness of our stock means that we are also very appealing to interior and fashion designers with a taste for the exotic.
There is something for everyone at Kashgar - collectors, the curious, those looking for a special present or for something unique to adorn the home. Most of our items are one-off specialties; other pieces we only stock in small quantities so as to continuously offer a wide and ever-changing range of interesting products. We are also packed with ideas for decorating home and work premises that will challenge your established concepts of design and storage.
Please enjoy - Linda Heaphy
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Shanon
May 30, 2023
It’s April 19th today! Happy anniversary to that guy who made bread!