For the fun of it....

[orichalcum]

So, I'm writing an article/paper/part of the book currently on female-authored Pompeian graffiti. This means that I have to do a lot of interpretation and inference from very little data.

So, gentle reader, tell me a story - who do _you_ think the protagonists and hidden narrative are behind each of these graffiti?


1. "I would not sell my man/husband for any price."

2. Valens [the master of the house], 'Lady.' Would that I were a Lady. We ask for health.

3. Livia greets Alexander. If you are well, I don't care much; if you are dying, I'll come running.

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming #1 refers to husband/man's sexual prowess? It reads like an old 'Cosmopolitan' magazine headline. ;)

[darkforge.livejournal.com]

How does anyone even know that #3 was written by a female? Are we assuming that Livia wrote #3? Why?

Where are these quotation marks coming from? Are there quotation marks in the graffiti? (e.g. did somebody put scare quotes around "Lady" in #2?) Or are they your editorial addition?

For #3, does the graffito actually say "Livia greets Alexander?" Assuming you're right that this is a female-authored graffito and that there's anything interesting here at all, I would have to assume that the second sentence is what Livia says to Alexander, but then I would have expected quotation marks...?

Assuming that the second sentence is voiced by Livia to Alexander (and not the other way around, or that #3 isn't simply two unrelated graffiti), I'm guessing #3 is an inheritance joke. Livia doesn't really like Alexander, but she hopes to inherit his fortune if he dies.

retsuko has a reasonable guess about #1. On the flip side, it could be an ironic criticism of some man/husband who has sold his woman/wife, in which case, again, it needn't even be a female who wrote it.

I can't even parse #2. I assume by "[the master of the house]" you mean that Valens is male. I guess we assume that the author is female because the graffito expresses a wish to be a Lady. By that, I guess we're assuming that Valens has called the author a Lady, which she denies.

The bizarre bit is "we ask for health." The author and who? Are they asking Valens for health? Why? Is he a doctor? Is he doing something that's negatively impacting their health?

Assuming the worst, I guess we're supposed to imagine that Valens has had sex with the author, who is no Lady, and that this has made her (and others?) less healthy, perhaps due to STDs, chafing or environmental infection.

In that case, I guess the author asks for health by asking Valens to forbear from activity that makes the author unhealthy. For example, perhaps he should stop having sex with the author, or avoid catching STDs from other partners, or perhaps he should bathe more frequently, or whatever.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

We don't know any of them were written by women, but the female subject at least suggests it. The Latin is Livia Alexandro salute, literally
"Livia greets or "offers good health" to Alexander. Similarly, the "we ask for health" may just be "we greet you;" it's the equivalent of "hope you're well!" So I wouldn't assume ill health on the part of the "we," but you're right that the sudden 1st person plural is bizarre.

Yes, we know Valens to be male.

The quotation marks are all mine, and thus may be confusing - apologies.

Romans didn't know STDs existed, so that theory's out, unfortunately. :)

[darkforge.livejournal.com]

Romans didn't know STDs existed

Really? Some "STDs" are really obvious (like genital warts) and, IMO, obviously sex-related.

They did at least have some sense that dirty genitals were more likely to result in painful/itchy infections, right?

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Well, we're not sure how old genital warts are - there aren't mentions of them in ancient medical texts. Dirty genitals got blamed on the female partner, but there's no sense of disease associated with them in the texts we have. Who knows what got passed down through oral tradition, though?

[jab2.livejournal.com]

"Who knows what got passed down through oral tradition, though?"

...

so to speak??? (ducks and runs...)

um...

[(Anonymous)]

I think the last one is just hilarious.