18 
June Itii.- —The Rev. J. Kenrick read a notice of the 4th 
volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, lately added to 
the Library, and containing the Wall-Inscriptions (Graffiti) of 
Pompeii. The name Graffiti belongs strictly only to those which 
have been traced on the wet mortar with the stylus or graphum, 
but is applied also to those painted, or drawn with chalk or char¬ 
coal. The inscriptions contained in this volume may be con¬ 
veniently divided according to their subjects, and the first class 
answers to our election placards. The wall was the regular 
medium at Pompeii of nominating, advertising, and canvassing 
for the municipal offices of the duumvirate and the sedileship. 
The scriptor, who answered to our billsticker, held nothing sacred 
which afforded him space for the exercise of his vocation. 
Among the sepulchral inscriptions we find appeals to the scrip- 
tor to spare the monument, accompanied by a wish that if he 
did not, he might himself come to grief, and his candidate lose 
his election.* As the elections were annual, these inscriptions 
are numerous. The usual form of nomination was O. F. (oramus 
fociatis, we pray you to elect such an one) duummrwn or cedilem, 
as the case might be, with the addition of virum probum or 
virum dignum. Sometimes whole trades are appealed to to 
return a candidate, e.g. the cauponarii (victuallers), pomarii 
(fruiterers), more literally costermongers, (ball players), 
unguentarii (perfumers), and several others. Both duumviri and 
cediles showed their gratitude by the exhibition of costly games 
{jnunera), including shows of gladiators, combats with wild 
beasts, hunts in the arena (venationes), sprinkling of the audience 
with scented waters {sparsioues) and vela, curtains spread over 
the theatre, which, at the foot of Vesuvius, and under a Nea¬ 
politan sun, must have been very grateful. Scenes from the 
combats of gladiators and the encounters of wild beasts are 
rudely pourtrayed on the walls of Pompeii. But the taste for 
these shows was not peculiar to them. Nothing is more fre¬ 
quently represented on the Samian pottery, which formed the 
ornament of Roman tables, and of which our Museum contains 
a large collection. Only a few years before the destruction of 
the city, the Pompeiians were so excited by an exhibition of 
^ Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions by the Rev. J. Kenrick, p. 9. 
