It was written on the vestibule wall of a well-to-do house owned by two freedmen, the Vettii, which is perhaps best known to the world for its painting of the well-endowed Priapus weighing his member on a balance against a bag of coins. The Eutychis graffito gives us a woman’s name, an ethnicity, a price, the hint of a good time to be had – and suggests a seamy side to the ruined town now frequented by inquisitive tourists and keen culture-vultures. Graffiti is one of the most exciting kinds of evidence preserved for us by the destruction of Pompeii, because it comes not from the literature of the elite, or the inscriptions of the powerful, but from a wider cross-section of society. There would have been a clamour of Oscan, Greek and Latin, and all the activities we would expect from a thriving town – politics, business, love, crime. We can imagine a busy place of some 12,000 people, rich and poor, free and enslaved, of public squares, fountains and gardens, fine houses and poorer dwellings, taverns, shops and workshops, and a stone amphitheatre for the provision of large-scale public entertainment. Photo courtesy Pompeii SitesĪs Rome expanded its power throughout Italy, Pompeii became a Roman city, though one that retained a diverse population. ‘Eutychis, a Greek lass with sweet ways, 2 asses’ grafitto at the entrance to the Lupanar, Pompeii. The land around Pompeii was fertile, and the city and region grew wealthy. Located on the Bay of Naples, near the mouth of the river Sarno, there are early signs of Etruscan culture, though the area was later settled by Oscan-speaking Samnites, who began the town’s real growth after around 200 BCE. The ancient Roman city was already an old town when it was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79 CE – and thus preserved for posterity. ‘Eutychis, a Greek lass with sweet ways, 2 asses.’ This pithy graffito advertising sex for sale comes from the walls of Pompeii.
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