What Romans Wrote on the Walls of Pompeii

Long before social media, Pompeii’s residents scratched love notes, insults, and crude jokes onto the city’s plaster walls.

Painted lettering on a Pompeii wall. Alongside these official notices, thousands of residents also scratched their own graffiti into the plaster.

Walking through Pompeii today, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture the city on an ordinary day in 79 AD.

The streets would have echoed with sound.

Conversations drifting from open doorways.
Laughter spilling from taverns serving conditum or spiced wine
The clatter of carts over worn stone streets.

The smell of bread from bakeries.
Garlic and olive oil.

And the sharp scent of garum — the fermented fish sauce Romans poured onto almost everything. Made by packing small fish, salt, and entrails into large casks, it fermented for weeks or months in the Mediterranean sun.