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A SERVILE RIDDLE FROM POMPEII? (CIL 4.1877)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2024

Olivia Elder
Olivia Elder*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
olivia.elder@classics.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article reconsiders a graffitied riddle from Pompeii (CIL 4.1877). It argues that slavery is one possible dimension of the puzzle, and that acknowledging the existence of slavery in this text testifies to the potential of Pompeian graffiti as a source for overlooked social histories.

Keywords

Pompeiigraffitislavery

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , May 2024 , pp. 354 - 359
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

This article concerns a Pompeian graffito (CIL 4.1877) that has long presented a puzzle, both to its ancient audience and to modern scholars.Footnote 1 Acknowledging the possible dimension of enslavement in this text helps to unlock some of its mysteries and testifies to the potential of Pompeian graffiti as a source for hidden or overlooked social histories.

The graffito was inscribed in Pompeii's basilica. Plausibly composed in verse,Footnote 2 it describes itself explicitly as a riddle:

Zetema
mulier ferebat filium similem sui
nec meus est nec mi similat sed
uellem esset meus
et e[g]o uoleba(m) ut meus esset. 5
A riddle:
A woman bore a son like herself
He is not mine nor is he like me but
I wish that he were mine.
And I have been wishing that he were mine.

Although all five lines are given as part of a single inscription in the CIL, and physically follow on from one another in their placement on the wall (see fig. 1), Peter Kruschwitz has shown convincingly that the final line (et ego uoleba(m) ut meus esset, 5) is written in a second, different, hand.Footnote 3 This line may, therefore, be the first of several responses that the graffito invited in antiquity. Three further responses appear just above the riddle, in the same panel on the wall (CIL 4.1878).Footnote 4 The topmost of these is somewhat smug and enigmatic: zetema dissoluit (‘[s]he solved the riddle’).Footnote 5 The Latin of the second is almost impossibly scrambled, but Danielewicz's ingenious reading is one plausible attempt to make sense of the muddle: Lacris a mala pateto bis arabis a.II (‘Lacris, may you be open from the mouth; you will plough [‘fuck’] twice for 2 asses’); that is, this is a reference to payment in return for sexual acts.Footnote 6 The third response is straightforwardly base: linge mentula(m) est (‘[the answer] is suck the dick’). This comment might simply be an expression of defiance at a riddle that evades comprehension or it might be another genuine attempt at a solution, again pointing to the riddle's potential sexual allusions.

Fig. 1:

Zangemeister's line drawing of CIL 4.1877 (Tab. XXIV 3); reproduced with permission

These responses offer beguiling evidence for the attention and engagement that such graffitied puzzles attracted in their original contexts.Footnote 7 Yet modern scholars have not been satisfied with these ancient solutions and have made their own attempts to unlock the riddle's mystery. Two main interpretations have been offered. The first is to see this as a riddle of family relationships, perhaps centred around the double meaning of sui as both the genitive of the reflexive pronoun suus and the dative of sus, ‘pig’; beyond pointing out this pun, however, subscribers to this view have not unpacked its significance.Footnote 8 Benefiel suggests that ‘the key lies in the word meus, which might be understood as indicating a father–son relationship (‘I wish he were my [son]’) but could be taken in an erotic sense (‘I wish he were mine’); she does not pursue this explanation further.Footnote 9 The second interpretation is to understand this riddle as a coded and Greek-inflected reference to money-lending, since the Greek word τόκος can mean either ‘child’ or ‘interest’ and the phrase τόκον φέρειν can mean either ‘bear a child’ or ‘produce interest’; the mulier would then be the original sum of money.Footnote 10 On this interpretation, it is attractive to take the Greek heading zetema as a nudge to think bilingually in order to solve the riddle. However, although this reading makes sense of the title and the first line, it makes less sense of the rest (nec meus … esset meus). It is especially unclear why the debt should be desired; indeed, most commentators adopting this explanation concentrate on the first verse alone.Footnote 11

But there is another possible solution, one that draws both on the evidence of the ancient solutions on the basilica wall and on elements of existing modern readings. I suggest that this is a puzzle of parentage that depends upon the hierarchy of freedom and enslavement inherent in Roman society.

The frequent and complex puzzles of parentage in literature, especially comedy, offer parallels for the puzzle our riddle poses.Footnote 12 Sexual relations involving enslaved individuals raised especially acute questions about children's legitimacy and resemblance to their parents, with which ancient texts engaged. There are several reasons to suspect a reference to enslavement in this graffito. First is the term mulier: this can be a neutral term to describe a woman, but it frequently carries pejorative connotations and is often applied specifically to enslaved women.Footnote 13 Second is the possible pun between suus and sus. There are linguistic and conceptual associations between pigs, sex and slavery, especially if we follow the header's prompt to think in Greek: the term σῦς (or ὗς) could denote female genitalia,Footnote 14 and it is striking that the most famous and extended example of the wordplay between ‘pig’ and ‘vulva’ involves girls being sold into sexual slavery (Ar. Ach. 739–819).Footnote 15 As we have seen, two of the ancient responses themselves perceived a sexual tinge to the riddle, including one response that may refer to payment in return for sex.Footnote 16 Third, understanding this as a reference to sex between some combination of enslaved and free individuals makes sense of the content of the entire original graffito. We can imagine various possible scenarios underlying its verses. One possibility (a) is that the mulier refers to an enslaved woman who has borne a child by her enslaver; this child would indeed share his mother's enslaved status (‘be like her’ rather than like his father) and would not be recognized as his father's son, though his father might wish that he were. Alternatively (b), this could be a reference to an enslaved woman who bore a child by someone other than her enslaver, whether free or unfree; in this case her enslaver might resent the fact that the child was not ‘his’, since it was his prerogative to have sex with all those whom he kept enslaved.Footnote 17 A third possibility (c) is that the woman herself is not enslaved but free, and has had a child with an enslaved man. This scenario might well provoke public (though anonymous) complaint from her husband; in the riddle, the associations of enslavement colouring mulier and sus are transferred from her enslaved sexual partner to the woman and her child to underline her contravention of social hierarchies.Footnote 18 A fourth possibility (d) is that the mulier is a freedwoman who has been freed by her enslaver for the purpose of marriage and subsequently had a freeborn child with him.Footnote 19 On this reading, the voice behind the riddle can be imagined as that of her enslaved partner, lamenting that the child is not his son. It might then be significant that the final line of the original graffito expresses a desire for parentage but makes no corresponding wish about the child's legal status: the child is not like the riddle's enslaved author, and there is no expressed wish for him to be so.

To summarize, a translation of each of these different possibilities––spelling out the status differences in each––might run:

  1. a) An (enslaved) woman gave birth to an (enslaved) child. He is not my legitimate son nor is he like me (his free father) but I wish he were my legitimate son.

  2. b) An (enslaved) woman gave birth to an (enslaved) child. He is not mine nor is he like me (her enslaver) but I wish he were mine.

  3. c) A (free) woman bore a child (with an enslaved man). He is not mine nor is he like me (her free husband) but I wish he were mine.

  4. d) A (freed) woman gave birth to a (free) child. He is not mine nor is he like me (her enslaved partner) but I wish he were my son.

To differing degrees, these scenarios involve transgression of social norms, either in the scenario described or in the scenario desired.Footnote 20 Recognizing these transgressions strengthens Kruschwitz's argument about the relationship between the form and the content of the verses. He argues that the unusual spacing of the second verse across two lines ‘delayed the punchline’ (uellem esset meus) which comes as a ‘surprising twist after everything that proceeded it’.Footnote 21 However, he does not elucidate what this twist actually is, since he does not try to solve the riddle. Understanding the twist as a desire for paternity in defiance of normative social and sexual expectations explains its surprisingness and makes the line break more pointed.

All these possible scenarios also make sense of the responses that follow our graffito as further derogatory commentary on a woman perceived as (too) sexually available: the first response, immediately following the riddle, wishes that the child was the product of a sexual encounter with him (uoleba(m) ut meus esset); the other two are more explicitly vulgar (see above). The feelings and agency of the woman herself are of no concern to these respondents. On reading (d), these responses are especially poignant: consciously or not and whether themselves free, freed or enslaved, ancient respondents to the riddle overlook the heartbreak of the enslaved narrator and reply with sexual jokes and interpretations––just like most modern commentators.

This interpretation of the text opens our minds to the participation of enslaved people in Pompeii's inscriptional landscape. It is notoriously difficult to be certain about who writers of graffiti were: they are frequently anonymous and even when names are given they may not be real ones.Footnote 22 However, there is no reason not to assume that at least some writers and readers of Pompeian graffiti were enslaved.Footnote 23 This is especially so in light of recent work on the integral role that enslaved people played in literary culture and production.Footnote 24 Our graffito offers one concrete––if necessarily speculative––case-study of how we might use these texts as micro-histories of lives and experiences that are overlooked in the mainstream historical record.Footnote 25

A reading of these verses as a riddle of sex, status and parentage makes it a puzzle of real-world relevance. These themes were all prominent elsewhere in the social commentary of Pompeii's graffiti. Another nearby graffito from the basilica (CIL 4.1860) likewise references prostitution and ownership (quoi scripsi semel et legit mea iure puellast. quae pretium dixit non mea sed populi est, ‘The girl to whom I once wrote and who read my message is justly mine. The girl who named her price is not mine but is common property’).Footnote 26 The acuteness of questions about the status of the (formerly) enslaved and their children is also apparent in local documentary evidence: the case of Petronia Iusta, a long-running legal dispute over whether she was born free or enslaved, is recorded in several tablets from the Casa del Bicentario in Herculaneum.Footnote 27 Our graffito plays right into these concerns.

Admittedly, this is not necessarily the decisive solution to the riddle. Indeed, part of the riddle's allure may be that it evades a single answer; its playfulness lies in keeping people guessing. But enslavement should be considered as one plausible dimension of the riddle's mystery, not least because it is a theme to which it is easy to be oblivious.Footnote 28

Footnotes

I would like to thank Katherine Backler, Rebecca Benefiel, James Hua, Gregory Hutchinson, Alison John, Talitha Kearey, Leah Lazar, Thomas Nelson, Anthony Vickers-Collins, Benjamin Zide and seminar audiences in Oxford for some sharp observations on both written and spoken versions. I am also extremely grateful to CQ's anonymous reader, to the editor Bruce Gibson and to Clare Roberts. All translations are my own.

References

1 For the most recent edition of the graffito, with full references, see Solin, H., Varone, A. and Kruschwitz, P., CIL IV Inscriptiones parietariae Pompeianae Herculanenses Stabianae. Suppl. pars 4. Inscriptiones parietariae Pompeianae. Fasc. 2 (Berlin, 2021), 1704Google Scholar.

2 Courtney, E., Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions (Atlanta, 1995), 279Google Scholar argues that it is based on two iambic senarii, though the metre of the second has slipped in the inscription. Kruschwitz, P., ‘Patterns of text layout in Pompeian verse inscriptions’, SPhV 11 (2008), 225–64Google Scholar, at 244–6 also argues that the graffito is in verse, though he disagrees with Courtney over the line divisions.

3 Kruschwitz (n. 2), 244.

4 The difference in letter-forms, depth and placement of the different graffitied responses suggest that each was written by a different hand: see Benefiel, R.R., ‘Magic squares, alphabet jumbles, riddles and more: the culture of word-games among the graffiti of Pompeii’, in J. Kwapisz, D. Petrain and M. Szymanski (edd.), The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (Berlin and Boston, 2012), 65–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 75.

5 The third person seems to have been common for self-reference in Pompeian graffiti: on this practice, see Levin-Richardson, S., ‘Facilis hic futuit: graffiti and masculinity in Pompeii's “purpose-built” brothel’, Helios 38 (2011), 59–78, at 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milnor, K., Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii (Oxford and New York, 2014), 161–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 J. Danielewicz, ‘A palindrome, an acrostich and a riddle: three solutions’, in J. Kwapisz, D. Petrain and M. Szymanski (edd.), The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (Berlin and Boston, 2012), 320–34, at 331–4. Zangemeister printed the line in CIL as LACRIS AMALA PATIITO BIC ARABICAII (Lacris amala pateto bic arabicae). Danielewicz's main points of distinction from previous editors were to read the ‘c’ in bic and in arabic as ‘s’ and to read the final word not as arabicae but as arabis a.II. He offers several literary and graffiti parallels for his reading; other Pompeian graffiti advertising a price for sexual acts include CIL 4.5372 and CIL 4.8483.

7 On the interactivity of word-games at Pompeii, see Benefiel (n. 4) and Benefiel, R.R., ‘Amianth, a ball-game, and making one's mark: CIL IV 1936 and 1936a’, ZPE 167 (2008), 193–200Google Scholar.

8 Ohlert, K., Rätsel und rätselspiele der alten Griechen (Berlin, 1912), 192Google Scholar; Taylor, A., ‘Riddles dealing with family relationships’, Journal of American Folklore 51 (1938), 25–37Google Scholar, at 29; García-Hernández, B., De iure uerrino: el derecho, el aderezo culinario y al augurio de los nombres (Madrid, 2007), 17–18Google Scholar, 107–8. On the regular confusion of cases in the Pompeian graffiti, see V. Vaänänen, Le latin vulgaire des inscriptions pompéiennes (Berlin and Boston, 1966), 115–21.

9 Benefiel (n. 4), 74. During my final revisions of this article, Benefiel told me (pers. comm.) that she was studying the basilica graffiti further in a current book project where she will offer a reading of this graffito that coheres with mine here; we keenly await her analysis.

10 For the clearest explanation, with parallels, see Courtney (n. 2), 279. This solution was first proposed by Schenkl, K., ‘Ein pompejanisches Räthsel’, WS 8 (1886), 172–3Google Scholar; Milnor (n. 5), 179 also adopts it; Benefiel (n. 4), 74 lists it as one possible option.

11 For example, Schenkl (n. 10), 173 devotes his final sentence to the second verse, but although he claims it is ‘now understandable’ he does not explain why, and just paraphrases its content. Courtney (n. 2), 279 points out that the word adulterinus can mean either ‘counterfeit coinage’ or ‘illegitimate offspring’; this suggestion makes sense of the second verse as thematically related to, but not directly following from, the first.

12 See, for example, Men. Epit. especially 944–9 and Isae. 6.19–20, which also involve a mixture of enslaved and free individuals. Another interesting literary parallel is Stat. Silu. 5.5, in which Statius laments a child, originally enslaved in his household and then freed: he insists (5.5.69) that this child is his (meus ille, meus), even though he is explicitly not the biological father (5.5.11, 72). M. Gigante, ‘La vita teatrale nell'antica Pompei’, in I. Gallo (ed.), Studi Salernitani in memoria di Raffaele Cantarella (Salerno, 1981), 9–15, at 39–41 implausibly suggests a direct allusion to the Epitrepontes passage in our graffito, and Courtney (n. 2), 279 cites the passage as a parallel, but neither discusses the dimension of enslavement. Kepartová, J., ‘Kinder in Pompeji’, Klio 66 (1984), 192–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 202 suggests that the riddle concerns an illegitimate or adopted child, but again does not consider the involvement of enslaved individuals. On the prominence of the theme of mistaken parentage––and the frequent involvement of enslaved women in these plots—in both Greek and Roman comedy, see Feltovich, A., ‘Controlling images: enslaved women in Greek and Roman comedy’, Arethusa 54 (2021), 73–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Bücheler, F., ‘Die pompejanischen Wandinschriften’, RhM 12 (1857), 241–60Google Scholar, at 258 noted that the mulier in this graffito might be a meretrix but did not discuss her legal status. For more recent and general discussions of the term mulier, see Adams, J.N., ‘Latin words for “woman” and “wife”’, Glotta 50 (1972), 234–55, at 235Google Scholar; L'Hoir, F. Santoro, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man’, ‘Woman’, and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose (Leiden and New York, 1992). At 30–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, L'Hoir offers several examples of the term mulier being used to describe enslaved women, especially in Plautine comedy, including in sexual contexts; cf. 42–3, on Cicero's use of the term mulier to describe Sassia in the Pro Cluentio: slavery is also at issue here, since the focus of Clu. 181, 187, 191–3 is on Sassia's treatment of enslaved men. The emphatically pejorative mulier is one signal that through this behaviour Sassia herself has foregone her social status.

14 See Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (Oxford and New York, 1991 2), 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who cites Ar. Ach. 741 and Lys. 683. Semon. 7.2 describes a woman born from a sow (ἐξ ὑός).

15 On the animalization of enslaved people in ancient texts in general, see Bradley, K., ‘Animalizing the slave: the truth of fiction’, JRS 90 (2000), 110–25Google Scholar.

16 Not all prostitutes at Pompeii were enslaved (A. Varone, ‘Organizzazione e sfruttamento della prostituzione servile: l'esempio del lupanare di Pompei’, in A. Buonopane and F. Cenerini [edd.], Donna e lavoro nella documentazione epigrafica [Faenza, 2003], 193–215, at 202–3 suggests, based on onomastics, that 20 per cent of female prostitutes in the brothel were freeborn), but there was none the less a strong association between sex-work and slavery. On the lives of prostitutes at Pompeii, see S. Levin-Richardson, ‘The public and private lives of Pompeian prostitutes’, in B. Longfellow and M. Swetnam-Burland (edd.), Women's Lives, Women's Voices: Roman Material Culture and Female Agency in the Bay of Naples (Austin, 2021), 177–96. On ancient prostitution in general, see Green, M.F., ‘Witnesses and participants in the shadows: the sexual lives of enslaved women and boys’, Helios 42 (2015), 143–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strong, A.K., Prostitutes and Matrons in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Interpretations (a) and (b) rely upon the ambiguity of meus: the child would, of course, have been the enslaver's in terms of being his property, but was not his (legitimate) son.

18 Again, cf. Cic. Clu. 181, 187, 191–3 (see n. 13 above), where Sassia is described in language associated with the enslaved following allegations of her inappropriate treatment of enslaved men.

19 I am extremely grateful to CQ's anonymous reader for making me consider this possibility and its implications.

20 The Statius parallel mentioned above (n. 12) might argue against the transgressive nature of the desire for parentage in some of these interpretations, but even there Statius must work hard to claim the child as his own; note the insistent repeated meus. There is also no obvious sexual element to the lament in Statius.

21 Kruschwitz (n. 2), 245.

22 On the anonymity of graffiti as both problem and potential, see Milnor (n. 5), 3, 4, 14 and 22. Lucian, Dial. meret. 4.3 describes the havoc caused by deliberate impersonation in graffiti, showing ancient awareness of the difficulties of determining authorship of these texts.

23 For other examples of Pompeian graffiti possibly written by enslaved people, see Benefiel, R.R., ‘Dialogues of ancient graffiti in the house of Maius Castricius in Pompeii’, AJA 114 (2010), 59–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 87; Joshel, S.R. and Petersen, L. Hackworth, The Material Life of Roman Slaves (Cambridge, 2014), 76–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 143; at 97 they also consider enslaved people as readers of graffiti.

24 Good recent work on this theme includes Blake, S., ‘Now you see them: slaves and other objects as elements of the Roman master’, Helios 39 (2012), 193–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J.A. Howley ‘Reading against the grain: book forgery and book labor at Rome’, in J.N. Hopkins and S. McGill (edd.), Forgery beyond Deceit: Fabrication, Value, and the Desire for Ancient Rome (Oxford, 2023), 193–220; T. Kearey, ‘Editing’, in J. Coogan, J.A. Howley and C. Moss (edd.), Writing, Enslavement and Power in the Roman Mediterranean (Oxford, forthcoming). For the participation of (formerly) enslaved people in more ‘popular’ literary contexts we might think of the fables written by the freed Phaedrus.

25 For a recent attempt to use graffiti and inscriptions to imagine the lives of enslaved sex-workers, Levin-Richardson, see S. and Kamen, D., ‘Epigraphy and critical fabulation: imagining narratives of Greco-Roman sexual slavery’, in E. Cousins (ed.), Dynamic Epigraphy: New Approaches to Inscriptions (Oxford, 2022), 201–21Google Scholar.

26 For the text, see Varone, A., Erotica Pompeiana: Love Inscriptions on the Walls of Pompeii (Rome, 2002), 37Google Scholar; Levin-Richardson (n. 16), 177.

27 For a detailed discussion of the case, see Lintott, A., ‘Freedmen and slaves in the light of legal documents from first-century a.d. Campania’, CQ 52 (2002), 555–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 560–4.

28 On the (in)visibility of evidence for slavery at Pompeii, see Joshel and Hackworth Petersen (n. 23), especially 1–23.

Figure 0

Fig. 1: Zangemeister's line drawing of CIL 4.1877 (Tab. XXIV 3); reproduced with permission