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Ancient Graffiti and Domestic Space in the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii

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Ancient Graffiti and Domestic Space in the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii ANCIENT GRAFFITI AND DOMESTIC SPACE IN THE INSULA OF THE MENANDER AT POMPEII AN HONORS THESIS SUBMITTED ON THE 28th DAY OF APRIL, 2014 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICAL STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE HONORS PROGRAM OF NEWCOMB TULANE COLLEGE TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS IN CLASSICAL STUDIES BY ___________________________________ Julia Judge APPROVED: _____________________ Susann Lusnia Director of Thesis _____________________ Dennis Kehoe Second Reader ______________________ Christopher Rodning Third Reader Julia Judge. Ancient Graffiti and Domestic Space in the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. (Dr. Susann Lusnia, Classical Studies; Dr. Dennis Kehoe, Classical Studies; Dr. Christopher Rodning, Anthropology.) This thesis is a case study of the ancient graffiti found in a specific city block, the Insula of the Menander (I.X), in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Contrary to the late 19th and early 20th century treatment of graffiti in Pompeian scholarship, which dismissed ancient graffiti as casual inscriptions with little relevance to the archaeology of Pompeii, recent scholarship approaches ancient graffiti as artifacts, studying them within their context. Using this contextual approach, my thesis examines the spatial distribution of the graffiti in the Insula of the Menander to better understand the use of public and private space. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of ancient graffiti in context, providing a brief description of the current state of scholarship and of the history of the Insula of the Menander. Chapter 2 discusses the challenges of defining ancient graffiti, and the various approaches to their interpretation. The two hypotheses are: first, that graffiti frequency and public and private space are related, and second, that graffiti type and room function are related. Chapter 3 outlines the methodology for analyzing the graffiti in context, and introduces general comparisons of frequency and spatial distribution. Chapter 4 continues this analysis, describing the graffiti in the context of each house and unit in the insula. Chapter 5 concludes that ancient graffiti, when used along with related archaeological evidence, are an informative source for studying the conceptualization and use of public and private space in antiquity, and may be used in future studies for gaining insight into the functions of space in the Roman cultural mindset. ii Table of Contents List of Tables…………………......................................................... iv List of Figures …………………….................................................. v Chapter 1: Graffiti and Roman Domestic Space............................... 1 Chapter 2: Ancient Graffiti: Definition and Interpretation............... 20 Chapter 3: Graffiti in Context: Frequency and Distribution............. 35 Chapter 4: Graffiti in the Insula of the Menander............................ 44 Chapter 5: Graffiti and Defining Domestic Space............................ 65 Bibliography …………………......................................................... 78 Tables………………..……….......................................................... 82 Figures……………..………............................................................. 95 Appendix A Appendix B iii List of Tables Table Number Description 1 Total graffiti in insula I.X by room type. 2 Graffiti location percentages, interior vs. exterior. 3 Exterior graffiti by door number (see fig. 4 for plan of insula with this data). 4 Interior graffiti by room type, in order from front to back of house. 5 Interior graffiti by room type, by frequency. 6 Total graffiti percentages by category. 7 Numerical Graffito I.X.9 (CIL 4.8391) Roman numerals. 8 Numerical Graffito I.X.9 (CIL 4.8391) Transliterated Arabic Numerals. 9 Frequency of total graffiti by sub-category, textual. 10 Frequency of total graffiti by sub-category, figural. 11 Textual graffiti by sub-category: exterior. 12 Textual graffiti by sub-category: interior. 13 (The following tables express the graffiti of each house or unit, listed by room type.) I.X.1 14 I.X.2-3 15 I.X.4 16 I.X.5-6 17 I.X.7 18 I.X.8 19 I.X.10-11 20 I.X.18 21 Exterior graffiti associated with entrances with and without benches. 22 Comparison of number of exterior graffiti and house size. iv List of Figures Figure Number Description 1 Map of Pompeii (Dobbins and Foss, 2007) 2 Map of Pompeii, Regio I. (Dobbins and Foss, 2007) 3 Floor plan of the Insula of the Menander, I.X. (Allison, 2006) 4 Exterior graffiti frequencies in association with house placement and benches. (Plan from Allison, 2006) 5 Figural graffito, I.X.11. (Langner, 2001. n.1828) 6 Graffito in I.X.8, rm 3. (Langner 2001, n. 820) v Chapter 1: Graffiti and Roman Domestic Space Houses were physically and figuratively an integral part of the Roman cultural mindset. The domus was a central, sacred image in nearly all aspects of Roman culture: in the Roman religious tradition, Vesta was highly revered as the goddess of the hearth and home. Her temple in the Forum Romanum held the hearth of Rome from the earliest days of the Republic. The lares and penates watched over different parts of the house, and the imagines of ancestors were displayed prominently in the atria to be revered. Latin authors treat the domus, both the physical home and the household, as the crux of life and family, and a symbol of a free Roman male’s social position and lineage.1 In Roman law, the house often represented a legal boundary; the question of whether or not a woman was married, for example, was determined based on whether or not she had been “led into the husband’s home”. A Roman citizen was absolved from murdering a lower-class man who cuckolded him, so long as he caught the adulterer in the act with his wife domi suae, “in his house,” which was thought to increase the outrage of the crime. 2 The social mores and customary ideals of Rome in many ways revolved around the domus.3 By studying how the Romans behaved within their homes, we may gain a deeper understanding of the intricacies of Roman culture and daily life. This study is focused on the domestic culture in Roman Pompeii. I will analyze the graffiti found in Pompeian houses in order to better understand the function of Roman domestic space. 1 Saller 1984. 2 Frier and McGinn 2004, 112. 3 Hales 2003, 18. 1 When studying Roman domestic activity, people are often struck by its similarities to our own way of life. The mosaic boasting a fearsome collared dog and the phrase cave canem (“Beware of dog”) in the vestibule of the House of the Tragic Poet is met by viewers of today with warm familiarity. What is equally striking, however, is one of the biggest differences between a Roman domus and a typical Western home of today, the distinction between public and private spaces. In the modern Western mindset, the division between public and private is sharp. We typically leave our homes to work and return home when the day is done. Although some people may work from home, it is considered typical for business to be conducted away from the home, which is a personal, not professional, space. This boundary between work and home did not exist in a Roman domus. Well-to-do Romans of the late Republic and early Empire conducted most business from their homes. This would be atypical today, with most of our business occurring in office buildings that are zoned away from residential areas. In Pompeii, however, the Roman equivalent of a banker would have met his clients in the front room of his own house. Living and working in one space would have made for a completely different conceptualization of how domestic space should be viewed and used, particularly with regards to which spaces were considered “public,” and which were “private.” Andrew Wallace-Hadrill has suggested that the Romans operated on a socially- accepted hierarchy of privacy in a residence: some areas were fully open to the public, some by invitation of the pater familias only, and others strictly for household members.4 A Roman home would have functioned as a private residence, but with public features. 4 Wallace-Hadrill 1994. 2 The concept of public and private space greatly affected the Roman way of domestic life. One of the results of this integration of public and private space is the appearance of graffiti on the walls within Roman houses. This phenomenon is essentially non-existent in the Western world today. Although the appearance of graffiti on the walls of Pompeian homes may seem bizarre to a modern observer, the content of the graffiti is often quite similar to the graffiti we see today; the same names, insults, declarations of love and even lewd drawings that we see on our streets today can be found on the walls of Pompeii5. An individual, modern or ancient, may choose to inscribe a graffito for a number of reasons; to idly pass the time by sketching a familiar design, to convey a message to another person or a specific group of people, or perhaps to simply make his mark by signing his name. Whatever the authors’ intents may have been, the presence of graffiti indicates that people spent time in that space. Not only did people have to be present in a space to actually write the graffiti, but many of these authors were writing with an audience in mind; they must have expected others to pass through and view their inscription. In this way graffiti may act as indicators of where people spent time in Roman houses. I argue that the spatial arrangement and frequencies of graffiti may be viewed as a map of where people spent the most time, and even what sort of activities were done in those areas. In this way the study of domestic graffiti may illuminate what 5 Compare categories and sub-categories of ancient graffiti (Langner, 2001) and modern graffiti (Cook, Dutcher, Hargrove, and Terrance 1972).
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