Wayment and Grey, Jesus Followers in Pompeii 119
Regarding the contents of line five, it appears that Guarducci’s rendition of the phrase as SEVOS O[S]ORES (“cruel haters”) is much more questionable. Both eyewitness transcriptions agree that the letters “SO” were followed by a lacuna of several letters, which was clearly followed by the Latin case ending -onis/-ores. Based on the positions of the letters in the lines above and below the lacuna we estimate that Minervini’s and Kiessling’s transcriptions left enough space for approximately two or possibly three missing letters. Both editions also appear to indicate that the line began with seu/sicu (cf. Latin sive), followed by three letters, and then ended with the singular genitive case ending. 54 Therefore, the final word of line five could be plausibly reconstructed as o[rati]onis (“of the oration” or “belonging to the oration”); since it follows what appears to be a nominative noun (os “face”), the line could have the sense of “the head/face of the oration,” but this is admittedly conjectural since there is no surviving artifact to consult and the letters “rati” might not fit comfortably in the conjectured position. Although such a phrase is not attested in literature, it would appear to convey the idea of the beginning of an oration or in light of an oration, which may be appropriate in the context of the previous line which mentions Bovios “listening” to Christians. On the upper graffito, written in a different hand by someone other than the author of the lower graffito, little more can be said beyond the apparent reference to wine (Latin vina) and the presumably Jewish name “Maria.” The close proximity of this name with the lower graffito mentioning “Christians” is quite intriguing, leaving us to wonder about the possible relationship of the two inscriptions; could one have been written in response to, or “in conversation with,” the other? 55 Was Maria a Jewish woman somehow associated with the group of Christianos to whom Bovios was listening? Unfortunately, the graffiti are simply too fragmentary to be certain. Similar uncertainty surrounds the third line of the upper graffito, which contains two letters at the end separated by a mid-point dot suggesting an abbreviation, but without more context it is difficult to determine the precise meaning. 54
Given typical orthographic variations, it is possible that the author of the graffito intended -ones, which would have a significant effect on the meaning but little effect on the potential nouns used to reconstruct the lacuna. 55 On the practice of nearby graffiti being in conversation with each other, see Kristina Milnor, Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 164.