M.'s book explores the literary graffiti of Pompeii – that is, as she defines it, the scratched texts ‘whose form, diction, or sentiment point to the influence of canonical Latin literature’ in addition to direct quotations. Over the course of five chapters (plus an introduction and conclusion), she explores various aspects of the literary nature of graffiti, using examples from the corpus of evidence to address themes of politics, authorship and agency, and gender. She recognises that this is by no means a comprehensive study of the literary texts, but chooses to focus particularly on the metrical texts as she claims these are more readily identifiable as having a literary influence.
In the introduction and Chapter 1, ‘Landscape and Literature in the Roman City’, M. focuses primarily on the graffiti itself, exploring both previous scholarship and her own contribution to it with this volume. She clarifies the idiosyncratic methods of her own approach (a wise caveat), and addresses some of the difficulties in dealing with material that was not always accurately recorded, cannot be dated with certainty, cannot be easily reconciled with views of ancient literacy and the modern concept of graffiti as vandalism. Like many currently working on graffiti from the ancient world, she engages with questions of agency – both in terms of writer and audience – and how this might shift in the case of literary texts, where the extent to which the graffiti represents either oral street culture, materialised orality of the poetic tradition, or some combination of the two adds another dimension to the analytical discourse. This includes discussion of writing, literacy and authority, and how this has been viewed within the scope of the ‘epigraphic habit’. For Pompeii specifically, she points out the lack of anonymous authoritative texts, and suggests that on some level it is possible graffiti took this form, and thus should not be viewed as the subversive act of vandalism as is commonly the case. She cites, as example, CIL IV 7038, an admonishment in regards to dumping refuse written in hexameter. Instead, she suggests that the writing on Pompeii's walls is a conflation of public texts, self-representation, notions of identity and commentary on society or politics.
Political expression, or rather the lack thereof, is explored in Chapter 2: ‘Poetic Politics, Political Poetics’. M. finds the disparity between the political graffiti recorded (often verbatim) in ancient literature and its absence from the walls of Pompeii problematic. In essence, the Pompeian graffiti, she says, does not conform to the expectation based on historical sources. That the graffiti and dipinti have been heretofore treated separately is the problem, especially when one considers the appearance of metrical phrasing in some electoral notices (e.g. CIL IV 6625 and 7201). M. suggests the political discourse should be viewed not just in individual texts, but in the messages presented by a collection of texts appearing on the same wall. This argument is developed further by exploring ideas surrounding authorship, appropriation and anonymity in Chapter 3, ‘Authorship, Appropriation, Authenticity’. The anonymous nature of the graffiti is a main issue, as is the concept of the author as a single entity. This is expanded upon by looking at occurrences of graffiti in which the words of multiple authors are combined to create a new text. Ovid and Propertius are the unwitting co-authors of such a series (CIL IV 1893–8), which then begs the question of how much these texts are repetition versus the expression of individual sentiment.
Chapter 4 focuses on one specific text, ‘Gender and Genre: the Case of CIL IV 5296’, utilising the historically problematic graffito seemingly displaying female homosexual desire as a means to dissect past approaches to graffiti. Her critical approach towards the text as literature, examining word choice, especially diminutives, and the construction of the poetic voice, argues convincingly that it does represent a love poem written by one woman for another.
The final chapter, ‘A Culture of Quotation: Virgil, Education and Literary Ownership’, is an expansion of work M. has previously published, examining the appearance of Virgil in Pompeian graffiti. The most prolific of the ancient authors to appear on the walls of the city, the corpus of Virgilian evidence is often touted as evidence for its use in Roman education, but M. argues it should instead be viewed as a part of Roman popular culture, with specific quotes appearing as taglines that were part of the collective consciousness.
For all that recommends M.'s book in filling a gap in graffiti studies by examining literary texts, there are elements that detract from its usefulness, reducing the success of the volume as a whole. She is clearly knowledgeable of the ancient literary evidence, and handles it adeptly. The same cannot be said for her knowledge of current studies in graffiti. There are many occasions throughout the book where she discusses specific aspects of graffiti, sometimes in great detail, yet is missing relevant bibliography. Recent work on linguistics (H. Halla-aho & P. Kruschwitz, Arctos 41 [2007], 31–49), texts and image (E. Meyer, AJA 113.4 [2009], 569–97; P. Kruschwitz & V. Campbell, Arctos 43 [2009], 57–84), women's voices (S. Levin-Richardson, CJ 108.3 [2012–13], 319–45; P. Kruschwitz, Athenaeum 100.1–2 [2012], 197–229), writing on trees (P. Kruschwitz, ZPE 173 [2010], 45–62), word play and handwriting (V. Campbell, M. Nicholls & P. Kruschwitz, Tyche 27 [2012], 93–111), amongst others, is lacking. In addition, her dismissal of Herculaneum (although it is unclear if she means in terms of graffiti itself or literary graffiti) leads to disregard of useful comparanda. Another problem concerns referencing the graffiti. Throughout there are instances (often in discussion of another text) for which a reference is not given. The biggest problem occurs in Chapter 5, where references to the Virgilian graffiti are included in an appendix. This, however, is lifted entirely (save two additions) from the chapter M. contributed to W. Johnson's Ancient Literacies (2011). The problem is that numerous additional texts located adjacent to the Virgilian graffiti are discussed, but none of those are referenced, thus rendering it nearly impossible to identify the additional texts.
Finally, M. displays a tendency to look for parallels between the graffiti and other texts or styles of writing with a literalness that seems a step too far. At one point she compares dipinti, graffiti and epitaphs, looking for similarities in form and expression. One could argue this is indicative of the norms of cultural expression in writing rather than a deliberate attempt for one type of writing to imitate another. Furthermore, her analysis of greetings as a direct imitation of epistolary forms is taken beyond a logical conclusion. Whilst there is certainly an element of letter writing that is clear in the standard graffiti offering such a salutation, assuming that every salutem is literally offering someone good health (pp. 164ff.) is as preposterous as assuming every missive that begins ‘Dear –’ indicates the addressee is actually beloved by the writer. Further discussion of epistolary forms in graffiti as a contradiction by making something wholly personal public is difficult to reconcile with the ancient evidence provided by Cicero, Pliny the Younger and others, that demonstrates unequivocally that letter writing was very much a public genre, collected and published purposefully.
M.'s book is, in its conception, a much needed addition to the developing field of graffiti studies, but in its execution, leaves a little too much to be desired. It is my hope that it becomes a starting point for more work in this area, incorporating a broader focus in form (non-metrical literary texts) and geography (Herculaneum and other Vesuvian sites), as well as more fully incorporating recent scholarship in the areas of graffiti and other non-lapidary texts.
