Inscriptions from the time of the Roman Republic, translated by E.H.Warmington (1940). The numbers in red refer to the Latin text in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
[i] Lucius Aqutius, a fine man; settlers, I appeal to you to elect him member of the Board of Two.
[ii] Numerius Barcha, a fine man; I appeal to you to elect him member of the Board of Two. So may Venus of Pompeii, holy, hallowed goddess, be kind to you.
[iii] Numerius Veius Barcha, may you rot!
[iv] Numerius Veius, a fine man; settlers, I appeal to you to elect him member of the Board of Two.
[v] Your best friend - Marcus Marius. Elect him aedile !
[vi] Marcus Marius; I appeal to you to elect him aedile.
[vii] Marcus Marius, a fine man: I appeal to you, settlers.
[viii] Quintus Caecilius, a generous man. To be quaestor - I appeal to you.
[ix] Quintus Caecilius, a fair and generous man. To be quaestor.
[x] Publius Carpinius, a fine man. I appeal to you to elect him member of the Board of Two.
[xi] Publius Furius, a fine man. I appeal to you to elect him member of the Board of Two.
[xii] Lucius Niraemius, a fine man. To be member of the Board of Two.
[xiii] Marcus Septumius, a fine man. I appeal to you, settlers - member of the Board of Two.
[xiv] Marcus Veius (?). What I ask again and again . . .
[xv] Quinctius. Let anyone who votes against him take a seat by an ass.
Pumidius at Pompeii. Written on the inside of a wall in the basilica at Pompeii, 78 B.C.
Gaius Pumidius Diphilus was here on the 3rd day of October in the consulship of Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Catulus, with (?).
(i) A lover's lament. (Quotation from a poet?)
'What's up? Now that your eyes have drawn me down by main force into a blaze, . . . you wet bountifully your cheeks.'
'But tears cannot quench the flame; see here, they burn the face and waste the heart away.'
Written near:
Composed by Tiburtinus.
(ii) Near and perhaps in derision of these lines the same person wrote the following:
Up ran the neighbours, and take part in the conflagrations . . . that they might deliver them to the flames.
(iii) Unfinished love poem addressed to a youth (?) by the same hand:
If you know how strong love is, if you know yourself for a human being, have pity on me, give me leave to leave here for you. May Venus' flower be [given to me?].
(iv) Epigram on or to Caesia; ends of lines lost:
Miss Grey-eyes, if . . .
If a little . . .
Eat, drink, and be merry . . .
Nor always . . .
(v) On love-making:
He only can make love properly who knows how to give a girl plenty of things.
Plenty - that's what he must have . . .
For, not to know how to give . . .
Reward offered for a theft. Painted on a wall at Pompeii. Late in the second or early in the first century B.C.
Lost from this shop - a bronze water-pot. 65 sesterces REWARD to anyone who brings back the same. If he produces the thief; from whom we may rescue our property, 84 sesterces.
A Sicilian stonemason's advertisement; bilingual. Found at Panormus, Sicily?
[a] Here slabs for holy temples are modelled and engraved with letters by public labours through us.
[b] Here inscriptions for holy temples are arranged and engraved by public labours through we.
ILLRP_826
Epaphroditus, a perfumer visiting Ithaca (35 B.C.) :
see Additional Inscription 6.
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