“Parce opus hoc, Scriptor”: Contextualising Inscriptions Prohibiting Graffiti in Ancient Rome

Ancient graffiti was located inside and outside numerous types of buildings – including places of business, political centres and domestic residences – in both private and public contexts. Thus, given that thousands of known examples of graffiti survive today from the ancient Roman world regardless of spatial location, it may seem surprising to the modern audience that there are very few sources which explicitly ban graffiti, either of a literary or epigraphic nature. The wider culture of graffiti-writing in antiquity was vastly different to current understandings of graffiti. However, although the inscriptions which prohibit graffiti upon their surfaces are limited, it is striking that these examples emerge solely from funerary and religious contexts. This seminar will highlight the importance of contextualisation when considering ancient perceptions of graffiti, comparing extant inscriptions from imperial Rome for a more wholistic understanding of graffiti-writing culture. Furthermore, this seminar begins to interrogate understandings of the concept of defacement in the Roman world, adding nuance to the current scholarship surrounding Roman graffiti-writing and its reception in antiquity.

Image credit: "Pompeii" by katharine_sykes, CC BY-NC 2.0