For example, Milnor notes several instances where either oral or written poetry has been added to formulaic programmata to help advertise a candidate for office. “Poetic Politics, Political Poetics” (chapter 2) explores how Pompeian politics, poetry, and wall writing intersect in ways we might not expect from reading literary sources that show graffiti being used for political dissent. For example, she suggests that poetic quotations painted in the garden of the Caupona of Euxinus rounded out the Hellenistic, bucolic feel of the existing decoration and landscaping, with the effect of turning the space into a “literary landscape” which “allow the guests briefly to inhabit a pastoral idyll” (p. She then shows some of the ways graffiti meld various epigraphic and literary genres and engage in complex dialectics with other texts and images in the cityscape. Noting the proliferation of inscriptions commissioned by public officials and private benefactors, Milnor reminds us that ancient graffiti belong within this larger epigraphic context, rather than outside it (as she suggests is the case with modern graffiti, p. 121-2).Ĭhapter 1 (“Landscape and Literature in the Roman City”) describes some of the fundamental characteristics of the written landscapes of ancient cities. Terentius’ amicitia in CIL 4.4456 solidified bonds of beneficia between the writer and Terentius (p. I myself value her emphasis on the ways in which graffiti act upon readers, from how second-person forms within graffiti prohibiting dumping made them more effective (p. 273-4)), but also, for example, Catullus’ disavowal of the epitaph format for his poem on the death of his brother (p. 97-101, 119) graffiti as dangerous to wise men in Plutarch (p. 21) graffiti as political dissent in Cicero, Suetonius, Strabo, and others (p. This includes not only the portrayal of graffiti in literature (e.g., erotic wall graffiti in Pseudo-Lucian’s Erotes (p. Others will enjoy Milnor’s discussion (embedded throughout the book) of how literary texts represent and engage with materiality. A novice to ancient graffiti (or even antiquity) will appreciate Milnor’s clear prose, ample introductory material to the culture of ancient graffiti writing, and the infrequency of untranslated Latin or Greek. Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii offers something for everyone. Ultimately finding that individuals remixed elements of oral and written culture in graffiti for their own artistic and social purposes, Milnor advances our understanding of what literature meant to the general populace, while contributing to recent scholarship on the social and material contexts of ancient graffiti. Each chapter investigates a handful of metrical graffiti on a particular theme, allowing Milnor to combine her skill at critical reading 1 with comparisons to other graffiti and literature, and examination of physical context. House of Cosmus and Epidia: Aufidius was here.In her new book, Milnor explores the roles of literary elements (quotations of canonical literature, as well as literary language, content, and form) in Pompeian graffiti, applying literary criticism to graffiti studies and the material study of graffiti to literary studies.Gladiator barracks: Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion
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