Trip to Pompeii to Study Some Obscene Graffiti

I had just examined a couple of graffiti that I had come to study in a Pompeian house. I was about to leave but it was pouring so I decided to wait a while at the entrance of the house. I happened to glance at the doorpost opposite me and noticed some scribblings there that I wasn't aware of. Look at that, there's another insult! Leporis felas, "Leporis, you suck dick". This was the absolute highlight of my trip to Pompeii.

At Pompeii in November 2021

I wanted to work on my PhD in Rome so that I could travel to Pompeii and study some graffiti found there that are the primary material of my research. Most of these graffiti have been published in epigraphic editions, but it is often difficult to get a clear idea of the spaces where they were written based on these editions. How visible were the graffiti? Were they written in large or small letters? What kind of buildings and spaces were around them? Who could have moved in these places? How many other graffiti were there? Publications, maps and photographs present a lot of information, but seeing and experiencing these places and some of the extant graffiti gives a whole new perspective into their physical context, and often gives rise to completely new ideas.

The forum of Pompeii

That is why I traveled to Pompeii one weekend in November 2021. I spent three whole days in Pompeii studying and photographing the graffiti and the places where they were written, and two days in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. I'd planned ahead by checking the locations of some of the graffiti relevant to my research, and applied for a permission to visit a few places that are not open to the public. 

One of the most interesting locations in Pompeii was the great brothel called the Lupanar. The building has rooms for prostitutes on two floors and a number of explicitly erotic frescoes.

Ground floor of the Lupanar

A fresco in the corridor of the Lupanar

The rooms on the ground level all have masonry beds that must have had mattresses and cushions on top in antiquity to make them more comfortable. These rooms contain an exceptional number of graffiti, most of which is obscene in nature and some of which can be interpreted as insults. I had permission to study these rooms that otherwise are not accessible to the public. The tourists can only look into the rooms from the doorways. There was a constant stream of people coming through the Lupanar, and many of them watched with curiosity as I worked in the rooms with a flashlight, a measuring tape and a notepad in my hands.

A prostitute's room in the Lupanar

The lighting was poor and some of the walls were so cluttered with writings that it was difficult to tell apart the individual graffiti. I tried to find the ones that are a part of my research with the help of my notes and a flashlight, and I finally found most of them. Here are some examples of the graffiti that I studied in the Lupanar.

Feliclam ego hic futui (CIL IV 2200) = I fucked Felicla here (seen in part in the middle of the photo)

Phoebus pedico (CIL IV 2194) = Phoebus is an assfucker

𝚳𝚶𝚲𝚨 𝚽𝚶𝚼𝚻𝚶𝚼𝚻𝚸𝚰𝚺 (CIL IV 2204) = Mola is a fucktress

Fututa sum hic (CIL IV 2217) = I was fucked here

Pedicare volo (CIL IV 2210) = I want to fuck ass

Although I'd seen photos of these graffiti, it hadn't sunk in just how many there were on some of the walls, and how some of them were written with huge letters and some with just tiny ones. The handwriting is also easier to decipher when you see the texts yourself. It is interesting to note that most of the graffiti is concentrated in a couple of the rooms, whereas some of the rooms have almost no graffiti at all. This raises the question why the graffiti were clustered in these rooms. Scholars have suggested that the rooms with the most graffiti may have served as waiting rooms or that they were simply in use more than the other rooms.

Casa del Frutteto, plaster with graffiti removed between the doorways

In addition to the Lupanar I got permission to examine graffiti at a private house (Casa del Frutteto), which was supposed to contain a handful of insults on one wall. When I got to the house, however, I noticed that the plaster with the obscene graffiti had been removed and, I suppose, stored somewhere else. I will have to find out where these graffiti are and whether it's possible to see them when I come back to Pompeii. Nonetheless, the house was wonderful with its colorful frescoes, and I got to study the surroundings of the place where the graffiti had been written.

Frescoes in Casa del Frutteto

Frescoes in Casa del Frutteto

After the excavations of Pompeii most of the graffiti documented there has either eroded away or they have been removed from the walls to be stored elsewhere. That's why I mostly studied empty walls and photographed streets, doorways, rooms and other places where insults have been found. On one street (Vicolo delle Pareti Rosse) I counted doorways, some of which have been walled shut in antiquity. This has led to some confusion as to the exact location where some of the graffiti were found. These locations in Pompeii are usually indicated by a system of modern region, block and door numbers. I think the case of this one street became a little clearer now.

Vicolo delle Pareti Rosse, Pompeii

I also wanted to see the houses excavated in Pompeii during the past few years, and the graffiti insults that can still be seen on the walls of these houses. The Great Pompeii Project that aims at preserving and restoring Pompeii has led to new excavations in the city for the first time in decades. I was particularly interested in the bar and the two private houses that have received much publicity in recent years. The counter of the bar contains one obvious graffito insult: Nicia cinede cacator, "Nicia, you are a shitting catamite". This bar and the insult could be seen through a glass wall.

The bar in Regio 5 of Pompeii

There is plenty of graffiti in the two recently excavated private houses, which have been named Casa del Giardino and Casa di Orione. Some of these graffiti have been mentioned in the media such as one that reads Leporis fellas, "Leporis, you suck dick" as well as one that reads Lucius cunnilingus, "Lucius is a cuntlicker". While checking these houses I happened to find another similar insult against Leporis that I wasn't aware of, the one mentioned in the beginning of this blog post. So there are two similar graffito insults against Leporis on both sides of the entrance to the Casa del Giardino. I also noticed that the name in the cunnilingus graffito doesn't seem to be Lucius but something else that, however, is difficult to read. The reading of the word cunnilingus is certain so it is an insult in any case.

Leporis fellas = Leporis, you suck dick

Leporis felas [sic] = Leporis, you suck dick

There were other setbacks in addition to the graffiti that had been removed from the Casa del Frutteto. I had received permission to examine some of the graffiti that are stored in the storerooms of Pompeii, but just before my trip I found out that the storerooms are closed until further notice because of renovations. I also didn't get any permissions to the storages of the Archaeological Museum of Naples where much of Pompeian graffiti has been stored. Even though I didn't get to see these I decided to visit the museum to see the epigraphic collections, since I've heard they have some graffiti on display there. On the first day when I got there the epigraphic rooms were closed, and the custodians just shrugged and told me that the rooms might be open in the mornings. I came back two days later in the morning, and once again the epigraphic collection was closed. This time they told me it would be open some time next year! I suspect they made this up since some of my friends visited the museum just a couple weeks before me and got to see the epigraphic rooms. I'll try again in the spring with permissions. I did see the rest of the museum and a wonderful temporary exhibition on gladiators.

Archaeological Museum of Naples, exhibition on gladiators

Part of my mission on this trip to Pompeii was to see which houses and streets are open to the public and which of them will require special permissions. According to my notes there's still a number of graffito insults extant on the walls of Pompeii in places that I didn't have access to this time. For my next trip I will try to get permissions to see the rest of this material, both at Pompeii and in the storages of the museum in Naples. I'm planning to come back to Pompeii in the spring of 2022.

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Pompeian graffiti published in CIL IV = Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. 4, Berliini, 1871–

The photos and translations of the graffiti are my own.