| Summary: | This study concerns the fragments of textual graffiti which survive on the walls of the Roman city of Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce. In particular, it focuses on those writings which either quote canonical authors directly, or show the influence--in diction, style, or structure--of elite Latin literature. The Pompeian graffiti show significant connections with familiar authors such as Ovid, Propertius, and Virgil. While previous scholarship has described these fragments as popular distortions of well-known texts, this book argues that they are important cultural products in their own right, since they are able to give us insight into how ordinary Romans responded to and sometimes rewrote works of canonical literature. Additionally, since graffiti are at once textual and material artefacts, they give us the opportunity to see how such writings gave meaning to, and were given meaning by, the ancient urban environment. The book thus deals generally with the role and nature of 'popular' literature in the early Roman Empire but also specifically with the place of poetry in the Pompeian cityscape.
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