Graffiti in Ancient Pompeii
A Roman teenager scrawled a love note on a Pompeii wall—and it’s still there, 2,000 years later.
Panini — "Interior of Saint Peter's, Rome" (after 1754), public domain
Love Notes and Insults in Stone
A Roman teenager scrawled a love note on a Pompeii wall—and it’s still there, 2,000 years later. Some walls hold crude jokes. Others, names and confessions. The city is alive with voices from the past, preserved in sunbaked plaster.
Pompeii’s Ancient Social Media
The walls of Pompeii are a patchwork of graffiti—declarations of love, insults, bathroom humor, even campaign slogans. 'Secundus likes to screw boys.' 'Success to the innkeeper!' Archaeologists have cataloged thousands of these scribbles, making Pompeii a treasure trove of everyday Roman voices.
The walls of Pompeii are crowded with ancient graffiti. Love declarations, insults, dirty jokes, and even political slogans—scratched in Latin, sometimes in shaky handwriting. You can still read them today: 'Gaius loves Pomponia,' 'I hope your hemorrhoids rub together,' and 'Success to the innkeeper!' The city’s walls make it clear—the Romans never kept their thoughts to themselves.
