Children's graffiti of gladiators uncovered!
Breaking news in the world of ancient history! Researchers have uncovered surviving graffiti in Pompeii that depicts gladiatorial combat.
Ok, that is not exactly a novel discovery - we have a whole load of surviving graffiti depicting gladiators - but this one is potentially a little bit special.
The image is a line drawing using charcoal and depicts both gladiators and wild animals in combat. The charcoal should easily have washed off or faded over a very short period of time, suggesting that this graffiti may have been drawn in the final days of the town before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.
But more excitingly, the rudimentary design of the picture, alongside other images including the outlines of hands, has led researchers to speculate (rather convincingly) that this was drawn by a child or children - aged between 5-7 years old. Maybe they were copying similar graffiti and art works that they saw all around them on the walls of the town; or maybe they were drawing a scene from their imagination based on what they heard adults talking about. It is even possible that it was a scene one of the children may have witnessed as a member of the audience, but we should be cautious of thinking that this is the only possible explanation.
What I love about this find is not what it tells us about gladiators, but that it offers a glimpse in to the lives and actions of children. Ancient children, indeed children from most historical periods, are often explained through the eyes of adults: adult writers, adult painters, adult playwrights and poets. The amount of evidence that comes to us from the hands of children is, ostensibly, rather small (although our previous post about the letter of Theon is the exception to prove the rule). So when we have proof of their actions, proof of their interests and creations, they are worth highlighting!