Scribblers, Sculptors and Scribes Page 2
Several of the texts are followed by Quaestiones, brief questions that focus the reader’s attention on matters of content or, occasionally, of style. Each chapter concludes with a Grammatica section that includes a few brief grammar exercises, keyed to the order in which morphology and syntax are presented in Wheelock’s Latin but which should work reasonably well in connection with most other introductory Latin textbooks, particularly with reference to the Summarium Formarum (“Summary of Forms”) that is included as an appendix at the back of the book (where you will also find the Latin-English Vocabulary described in more detail below, and a list of general abbreviations that are employed in the notes and abbreviations of the titles of ancient works that are used in the passage citations).
Finally, in addition to the numerous illustrations accompanying the texts in each chapter, you will find, following this introduction, maps of Italy, the Aegean, Roman Britain, and the Roman Empire, which contain all the places mentioned in connection with the Latin texts except a very few at the outermost reaches of the empire and beyond the scope of the maps. In order to include as much detail as possible, and at the same time avoid crowding, two maps of Italy are provided, one with cities and highways, the other with regions and topographical features. Toponyms are given in Latin, with the exception of a few locations for which the ancient Roman names are not known and which are identified instead by their modern names in parentheses and italics.
Graffiti and Other Inscriptions
You should find the format of the Proverbia et Dicta and the Litteratura selections in each chapter clear enough, but a few comments may be helpful regarding my editing of the Inscriptiones. In nearly every instance the graffiti and other inscriptions, sometimes accompanied by a photograph or drawing, are presented in two forms, either side by side, or one above the other—first in a “transcription,” which very roughly approximates the appearance of the original, i.e., with lettering entirely in capitals, frequent abbreviations, lacunae for text missing due to damage, occasional run-on lines, and little or no punctuation (besides the occasional punctum, or raised “dot,” used in some inscriptions to separate words), and then in an “edited” text, with conventional capitalization, spacing, and punctuation, abbreviations “expanded,” and some lacunae restored. My purpose in this is to provide you with some insight into the editorial process and an understanding that ancient texts, whether transmitted via inscription or manuscript, rarely come down to us tidily packaged, with the i’s dotted, the t’s crossed, and the crisp clarity of a modern edition; the challenges (and fun!) of editing 2000-year-old inscriptions will be even more obvious to you in the case of those texts for which illustrations are included in the book.
A few more points regarding the transcriptions: besides the punctum, which was used infrequently in graffiti but quite commonly in epitaphs and other more monumental inscriptions (sometimes in the form of a triangle or an ivy leaf, rather than simply a dot), punctuation was rare in these sorts of texts—as, indeed, was true also of manuscripts, some specimens of which are among the book’s numerous illustrations. Occasionally the “apex” was employed, a small mark usually appearing over a vowel to indicate that it is long, but those and other marks of punctuation are generally not included in the transcriptions in this book. Likewise a variety of archaic or local letter forms (e.g., || for E) that appear in many of the inscriptions included in the book are printed in conventional classical letter form in the transcriptions; some of these can be easily seen in the accompanying illustrations, including the alphabet graffiti presented in Capvt I. As with the other inscriptions, I have substituted the familiar classical capital letters in transcribing graffiti, which in fact were generally written in a form of cursive and are, along with the Vindolanda tablets from Roman Britain (examples of which also appear in this book), our earliest specimens of handwriting in Latin. My transcriptions observe the line-breaks of the original, but center each line, as is not always done in the originals, and I have usually made no effort to reflect the irregular spacing or positioning of words that is so common in graffiti, as can be seen in the several facsimile drawings included in the book. Finally, archaic or local spellings and misspellings are generally retained in both the transcriptions and the edited text, and then commented on in the notes.
The following standard symbols for dealing with lacunae (gaps) and abbreviations that occur so frequently in inscriptions are regularly employed:
In transcriptions:
…] lacuna (missing text that cannot be restored) at the beginning of a line; here and in the next two symbols, three dots are always employed, regardless of the apparent length of the gap
[…lacuna at end of line
[…] lacuna at midline
In the edited texts:
(abc) an abbreviation expanded by the editor
[abc] letters missing due to damage and supplied by the editor
((abc)) text supplied for items represented by symbols in the inscription
Even more elaborate conventions exist for transcribing and editing Latin inscriptions, but the ones employed here should more than suffice for an introductory textbook of this kind.
Vocabulary
The principles employed in this reader for glossing vocabulary are simple: all words that have not yet been introduced by the corresponding chapter in Wheelock’s Latin are glossed at their first occurrence in each chapter, as are words that have a different sense in the current context than the meanings provided by Wheelock; words that have been introduced in Wheelock by a given chapter in the book and are thus not glossed are, however, listed in the Vocabula (“Vocabulary”) at the back of the book, so that students introduced to Latin using any beginning textbook can easily manage the vocabulary in this reader. Glosses typically contain the following:
the complete “dictionary entry” for the Latin word, printed in bold; full principal parts are provided for all verbs, except regular first conjugation verbs, which are abbreviated as, e.g., am (1), = am, amre, amv, amtum; the genitive form of third declension nouns is spelled out (other genitives are abbreviated, since their full forms are easily deduced from the nominatives);
English meanings, printed in italic, usually beginning with the word’s basic sense and including several definitions illustrating the broader semantic range a word can have;
a few English derivatives, given in quotation marks (e.g., am, amre, to love; “amatory,” “amorous”), which serve both as English vocabulary boosters and as an aid to remembering the meaning of the Latin word; derivatives are often not provided when an obvious derivative is included among the definitions (e.g., hmnus, -a, -um, human, humane.)
As you encounter a new vocabulary item, make an effort to memorize it then and there, a task that should be simplified both from instantly seeing the word used in context and by association with the derivatives provided in the glosses. Do recall that words likely to be unfamiliar are glossed only at their first occurrence in a given chapter—so if the word turns up again later in that same chapter, you may need to scan back through that chapter’s notes if you have forgotten the meaning.
READING ALOUD AND FOR COMPREHENSION
As you continue with your study of Latin, please remain constantly aware that this magnificently rich language did not merely consist of static written texts to be silently read, but it was for well over a millennium a spoken language—a language easily learned, listened to, comprehended, and spoken, not only by politicians and poets, but by Roman boys and girls, in fact, just as your own native language was acquired and spoken by you in your childhood. You should apply all your language learning skills in your study every day, listening and speaking, or at least reading aloud, and not just silently reading and writing. The Romans themselves, in fact, almost never read silently, even when they were alone, but routinely read aloud—and so should you! Train yourself always to pr
actice aloud all the new vocabulary items introduced in each chapter of this book, and most especially to read aloud every Latin sentence or passage you encounter, and, as you do, to read the Latin text for comprehension—reading it straight through two or three times, if necessary, to grasp the meaning—before attempting a translation into English.
Maps
THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Richard A. LaFleur and the Ancient World Mapping Center, www.unc.edu/awmc © 2009
ANCIENT ITALY: Cities and Roads
Richard A. LaFleur and the Ancient World Mapping Center, www.unc.edu/awmc © 2009
ANCIENT ITALY: Regions and Topographical Features
Richard A. LaFleur and the Ancient World Mapping Center, www.unc.edu/awmc © 2009
ANCIENT GREECE AND THE AEGEAN
Richard A. LaFleur and the Ancient World Mapping Center, www.unc.edu/awmc © 2009
ROMAN BRITAIN
Richard A. LaFleur and the Ancient World Mapping Center, www.unc.edu/awmc © 2009
CAPVT I
The ABC’s of Latin, Love, and Living Well
Whether scribblers, “sculptors” (i.e., engravers), or scribes, ancient folks who wrote texts of any sort required an alphabet, of course. The Romans borrowed theirs from their Etruscan neighbors (and at the time, in the sixth century B.C., their overlords), who had in turn adapted their script from Greeks living in south Italy. By the first century, literacy was far more widespread in Italy than one might suppose, particularly in cities and the more bustling small towns, and some of our best evidence of that is the graffiti Romans of all ages and social levels scribbled, etched, or painted on almost any available surface, from bathroom walls, to storefronts, to columns at the local gym. This chapter will introduce you to a few typical graffiti from Pompeii, whose destruction by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D.. 79 actually preserved for us the best known corpus of Latin scribblings, as well as some examples of another common sort of inscription, floor mosaics (also from Pompeii); the chapter’s graffiti include, besides some familiar “John loves Jane” sorts of declarations, a sampling of the numerous alphabets we find at Pompeii written out on walls for practice by schoolchildren (as we know from their position on the lower parts of the walls). And besides these various nscrptins, the chapter presents the first group of Prverbia et Dicta, proverbs and “quotable quotes,” transmitted to us thanks to the herculean efforts of hardworking and nearly always anonymous scribes, who, over the millennia until the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, meticulously copied out by hand nearly all the literary texts that have survived to us from ancient Rome.
Grammatica
The readings in each of this book’s forty chapters include some new grammar, i.e., forms and/ or uses (“morphology” and “syntax”), and the chapter introductions will alert you to what that grammar is; likewise the Grammatica section at the end of each chapter includes questions about the new material. The newly introduced grammatical structures correspond directly to those in the forty chapters of Wheelock’s Latin; whether you are using Wheelock or a different beginning textbook, you should carefully review the material in question. For this opening chapter, you should focus on the present active indicative, infinitive, and imperative of 1st- and 2nd-conjugation verbs.
Prnnti et Comprehende
One of the fundamental ABC’s of reading “The Mother Tongue,” besides knowing the alphabet itself and the basic rules of grammar, is always (semper!) to read aloud (the Latin verb for which is prnnti, prnntire) and always to read first for comprehension (from the verb comprehend). The ancients themselves almost never read silently, even when alone; language is a phenomenon of speaking and listening first and foremost—writing is simply (or not-so-simply) a representation of the spoken word—and this was especially true for the Romans, whose language, in all of its richness and even musicality, was meant to be uttered, heard, and comprehended. Translation into English is a valuable exercise, both as one means of demonstrating your understanding of a written text and even for improving your English composition skills, but it is fundamentally an artificial exercise and not at all the chief objective of learning Latin (or any language). So remember (mement!), always read first aloud and for comprehension: semper prnnti et comprehende!
NSCRPTINS
The Romans Learn Their ABC’s
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O [P Q] R S T V X
A A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R T V X
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 4.5487 and 5474: Of the two children practicing their “abe cedaria” on these Pompeian walls, the first (in 5487) must have felt an artistic impulse and gave the B an elegant flourish of a tail! The other child didn’t like the first A and so wrote it again. The letter forms seen here were common at this period, including the | | for E (as usual, the transcription here uses standard letter forms); there was no J or W, V represented both vowel and consonant, and Y and Z were commonly omitted (being used chiefly for words borrowed from Greek). In 5487 the P and Q were obscured by damage to the wall but supplied in the transcription in square brackets, a standard editorial convention used throughout this text. Alphabet practice seen in other graffiti included writing backward and upside down, and, in a type of exercise described by the Roman educator Quintilian (Inst. 1.1.25), a number appear in an alternating forward-backward series like this: AXBVCT…: can you complete the series?—Pompeian schoolkids could! I add a reminder here that the many graffiti and other inscriptions presented in this book that have CIL 4 numbers are all from Pompeii, unless otherwise noted (CIL 4 contains inscriptions also from the neighboring towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae).
Abecedaria graffiti, Pompeii, Italy (CIL 4.5487 and 5474)
Kay Stanton (from CIL)
Love Is Everywhere…
MARCVS SPEDVSA AMAT Mrcus Spe
CIL 4.7086: Here’s a lovely (and loving!) first reading, a graffito from Pompeii, complete with spelling mistakes!—it’s the sort of thing you’ve seen and read, and perhaps even written, on a wall somewhere, sometime…. The angular brackets, <…>, are used conventionally, and throughout this text, to indicate letters omitted by mistake and supplied by the editor; spelling errors or oddities like this often provide useful insights into an individual’s, or a community’s, pronunciation habits.
Mrcus: one of the commonest 20 or so ancient Roman male praenmina (first names; sg. prae nmen).—Spendsa: a less common female name, likely a slave or freedwoman (lberta). The usual -am ending signals the dir. obj., as does the word order, which is standard for Latin: SOV, subj.-obj.-verb (vs. English, which is an SVO language); final -m was often muted in speech, and sometimes therefore dropped in writing.
…But So Is Envy
AMAMVS Ammus—invidmus!
INVIDEMVS
CIL 4.1222: Inscribed on the Porta di Ercolano (the gate to Herculaneum) at Pompeii.
invide, invidre, invd, invsum, to be envious, envy, be jealous; “invidious.”
Good Luck to the Baker!
HIC • HABITAT Hc habitat Flcits.
FELICITAS
CIL 4.1454: Inscribed in stone in a niche over the oven in a Pompeian bakery, the graffito was accompanied by a carving of a phallus intended as a symbol of prosperity.
hc, adv., in this place, here.—habit (1), to live (in), dwell; “habitat,” “inhabitant.”—Flcits: an abstract noun = good luck, success, Eng. “felicity,” but also a woman’s name and name of the Roman goddess of Fortune as well; in view of the inscription’s location and the phallic symbolism, which sense is likely intended here? The subj. of a clause usually precedes its verb (cf. the following selection), but it can follow as well.
Celer’s House
AEMILIUS CELER HIC HABITAT Aemilius Celer hc habitat.
CIL 4.3794: Graffito from a house at Pompeii.
Aemilius Celer: the house’s owner; Aemilius is his family name (nmen), and Celer his cognmen, a name often following the family name, typically describing some physical or character trait and som
etimes inherited from a parent or ancestor.
Profit Is Good…
SALVE LVCRV Salv, lucru
CIL 10.874: From a Pompeian floor mosaic at the entrance to a private residence, the house of local magistrate Vedius Siricus.
lucrum, noun, material gain, profit; “lucre,” “lucrative.”
Floor mosaic, Pompeii, Italy (CIL 10.874)
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY
…But Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness