on the ‘‘Latin’’ spoken by the ‘‘satin doll,’’ which, in Mercer’s original
lyrics, did not actually signify the classical language. But lest we think this
is some kind of snobbish put-down of people who can’t tell the difference
between the use of ‘‘Latin’’ in ‘‘Latin America’’ and the language spoken
by the Romans, note that the hero of our story seems to be Duke
Ellington himself, who not only is able to cap the mysterious lady’s
quotation from theAeneidbut subsequently produces a perfectly service-
able Latin sentence all on his own. I would argue rather that the joke here
is at least partially on the reader, who thinks that she knows what Latin is
spoken in the world of the satin doll; but instead of a living, and lively,
‘‘Latin rhythm’’ or perhaps ‘‘Latin lovin’,’’ we get a dead ancient Medi-
terranean language—so dead, in fact, that the smooth lady is reduced to
quoting someone else for her opening ‘‘gambit’’ rather than saying some-
thing of her own. Indeed, the function ofarma virumque canohere is not
actually to communicate anything at all except the fact that the lady in
question speaks classical Latin, something that is at once funny and
mysteriously learned; within the narrative, the opening phrase of the
Aeneid functions as a pick-up line, but outside of it, as part of the
discourse of advertisement, it simultaneously captures our attention
with its humor and lends a certain air of educated classiness to the jazz-
and-smoke-filled bar that notionally gave birth to the satin blouse.
Of course, as citizens of the modern United States and products (to
whatever extent) of its educational system, we have a very different
relationship to Vergil’sAeneidfrom the one which people enjoyed in
antiquity. But I think the page from the J. Peterman catalogue illustrates
the ways in whicharma virumque canocontinues in the modern day to
have both mobility and meaningfulness; it is a phrase that simultaneously
says more and less than the sum of its words and which is able to
communicate significance without relying on sense. This is something,
I will argue below, that we also see in the use and abuse of Vergil’s
opening tag in Pompeian wall writing. Vergilian quotation in Pompeian
graffiti has, over the years, been variously interpreted. As long ago as
1837, Christopher Wordsworth compared the wall-writing practices of
Pompeians favorably with those of his own day: ‘‘I should much question
whether all the walls of all the country towns in England, would, if Milton
were lost, help us to a single line of the Paradise Lost.OurPompeiis do
not yet exhibit the words ofourVirgils, nor does it seem probable that
they soon will’’ (6; emphasis in original). On the other hand, it has been
pointed out that the vast majority of the Vergilian quotations are limited
to the first words ofAeneidbooks 1 and 2—little more than ‘‘school tags’’
and thus not necessarily indicative of a wide-ranging knowledge of Latin
literature.
(^1) In its original context,arma virumqueis a phrase full of weight
and meaning, the opening of (some would say) the greatest work of
- Harris 1989, 261; Franklin 1996 7, 182.
Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii 289