verbs or other deictic words, the later educational treatises understand it
primarily as an example of a particular kind of direct address. In its
original textual context, moreover, it is found (like the other quotations
above) in a speech: in addressing Jupiter, Venus uses the contrasting
example of Antenor to point out that Aeneas is at least as deserving of
rescue. It is perhaps curious that, there, it is not actually used in the
manner later recommended by the grammarians: although Venus cer-
tainly wants Jupiter to do something, the example of Antenor is brought
up as a kind of negative example, to show how much greater have been
the sufferings of Aeneas. Such ‘‘misreadings’’ are common in the gram-
marians, but if we may transpose their interpretations back to the Pom-
peian graffito, it should again give us some pause in seeing the ‘‘Antenor’’
quotation as evidence of knowledge about theAeneidgenerally as a text.
Instead, perhaps like many of the other lines from theAeneidfound in
Pompeii, its significance lies in its role as a means of communication from
one person to another.
In fact, the particular context of the Antenor graffito from the House of
M. Fabius Rufus adds, I would argue, another layer to our understanding
of theAeneid’s role in the ‘‘literate landscape’’ of Roman Pompeii. The
Vergilian line was actually found written beneath two other fragments
apparently in the same hand:^42 the first reads,Secundus Onesimo fratri suo
p[lu]rimam perpetuamque salutem(‘‘Secundus [gives] the most and eternal
salutations to his brother Onesimus’’); second, and immediately above
the quotation from the Aeneid,occasionem nactus non praetermisi tibi
scribendi ut scires me recte valere(‘‘Having obtained the opportunity of
writing, I have not let it go by in order that you should know that I am
very well’’). In other words, the Antenor quotation appeared along with
fragments of text that are clearly from a personal letter—although,
I would say, probably not an actual letter but one written for practice,
because elsewhere on the same wall we also have writtenOnesimus
Secundo fratri suo, Secundo plurimam amabiliter salutem, and further
repetitions of the phraseoccasionem nactus. Scholars have long theorized
that letter writing was a skill taught in the ancient school,
43
and the Pom-
peian graffiti provides some of our best evidence of this. Indeed, the basil-
ica—home to many ‘‘learned’’ jokes such as the neologismirrumabiliter—
offers us what is to my mind clearly a parody of a practice letter:Pyrrhus
Chio conlegae sal / moleste fero quod audivi / te mortuom itaque val. (‘‘Pyrrhus
[gives] salutation to his associate Chius. I am sorry to hear that you
are dead. Therefore farewell’’). Similarly,CIL4. 1237 runs in partPrime-
- See Giordano 1966, nn. 9 11 for line drawings of the original texts. Unfortunately,
although other fragments from the space have been preserved in Pompeii’s antiquarium,
these particular texts have been lost. - Cribiore 2001, 215 19: ‘‘The practice of epistolary skills in education has not been
investigated extensively’’ (216).
Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii 307