Friday, January 13, 2006
Complaining about graffiti in Pompeii
From Illinois State’s Julia Palmer’s paper at MLA:
When one finds an expression of emotion in Latin it is normally with the accusative + infinitive construction. The following inscription from Pompeii, which may be dated no later than 79 A.D. serves as a typical example:
Admiror pariens te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas
‘I am surprised, wall, that you have not fallen into ruins, who must bear the garbage of so many writers’
(cited in Pulgram 1978:218)
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