GRAFFITI (1/at graffito, a scratching), a class of ancient inscriptions to which attention has recently been called, and of which several collections have been made, or are in progress. The graffito is a rude scribbling or scratching with a stylus, or other sharp instrument, on the plaster of a wall, a pillar, or a door-post. Such scribblings are pretty commonly found on the substructions of Roman ruins, as in the golden house of Nero, the palace of the Cmsars and the Palatine, and in still greater numbers in Pon. peii and in the Roman catacombs. Their literary value, of course, is very slight; but as illustrating the character and habits of a certain class of. the ancient Romans, and what may be called the " street-life" of the classic period, they are deserving of study. A small collection of Pompeiian graffiti was published in 1837 by Dr. Wordsworth; but the most complete, or, at all events, the most popular collection, is that of Padre Gar rucci. a Neapolitan Jesuit, which was published in Paris in 1856. Greek graffiti occa sionally are found upon Roman ruins, but they are commonly in Latin, and in a few instances at Pompeii, in the ancient Oscan. A few specimens may not be uninteresting, Some of them are idle scribblings, such as we may suppose some loiterer to indite at the present day. thus, some lounger at the door of a wine-shop at Pompeii amuses him self by scratching on the door-post the tavern-keeper's name Taberna Appii (" Appius' s Tavern"). In other cases, we meet with some scrap of rude pleasantry or scandal, such
as not unfrequently defaces the walls of our own towns or villages; thus, Auge aniat Arabienum (" Auge is in love with Arabienus"). Many rude sketches also are found upon the walls, some of them evidently caricatures, others seriously meant, and gro tesque from the extreme rudeness. A great many of the subjects of those sketches are gladiatorial.
By far the largest proportion of the graffiti are from Pompeii, but many have also been discovered at Rome, and some of them are of a most interesting character. One discovered by Father Garrucci in 1856, to a subterranean chamber of the palace of the Caesars, possesses a strange and truly awful interest, as a memorial of the rude early conflicts of paganism with the rising Christian creed. It is no other than a pagan cari cature of the Christian worship of our Lord on the cross, and contains a Greek inscrip tion descriptive of one Alexamenus as engaged in worshiping God. The chamber in which it was found appears to have been a waiting-room for slaves and others of inferior grade.
The graffiti of the catacombs are almost all sepulchral, and are full of interest as illustrating early Christian life and doctrine.—See for the whole subject the Edinburgh Bedew, vol. cx. pp. 411-437.