“Vale, Messala, fac me ames.”

A superlative wag, but incorrect withal: 

    “Cosmus nequitiae est magnussimae.”

A learned man, or a philosopher: 

    “Non est exsilium ex patria sapientibus.”

A complaining suitor: 

    “Sara non belle facis. 
    Solum me relinquis,
    Debilis....”

A wrangler and disputant threatening the other party with a law-suit: 

    “Somius Corneilio (Cornelio) jus pendre (perendie?)”

A sceptic who cherishes no illusions as to the mode of administering justice: 

    “Quod pretium legi?”

A censor, perhaps a Christian, who knew the words addressed by the Jews to the blind man who was cured: 

    “Pyrrhus Getae conlegae salutem. 
    Moleste fero quod audivi te mortuom (sic). 
    Itaque vale.”

A jovial wine bibber: 

    “Suavis vinari sitit, rogo vas valde sitit."[B]

A wit: 

     “Zetema mulier ferebat filium simulem sui nec meus erat, nec mi
     simulat; sed vellem esset meus, et ego volebam ut meus esset.”

Tennis-players scribble: 

     “Amianthus, Epaphra, Tertius ludant cum Hedysio, Incundus Nolanus
     petat, numeret Citus et Stacus Amianthus.”

Wordsworth remarks that these two names, Tertius and Epaphras, are found in the epistles of St. Paul.  Epaphras (in Latin, Epaphra; the suppressed letter s shows that this Pompeian was merely a slave) is very often named on the walls of the little city; he is accused, moreover, of being beardless or destitute of hair (Epaphra glaber est), and of knowing nothing about tennis. (Epaphra pilicrepus non es).  This inscription was found all scratched over, probably by the hand of Epaphras himself, who had his own feelings of pride as a fine player.

Thus it is that the stones of Pompeii are full of revelations with reference to its people.  The Basilica is easy to reconstruct and provide with living occupants.  Yonder duumviri, up between the Corinthian columns; in front of them the accused; here the crowd; lovers confiding their secrets to the wall; thinkers scribbling their maxims on them; wags getting off their witticisms in the same style; the slaves, in fine, the poor, announcing to the most remote posterity that they had, at least, the game of tennis to console them for their abject condition!  Still three small apartments the extremity of which rounded off into semicircles (probably inferior tribunes where subordinate magistrates, such as commissioners or justices of the peace, had their seats); then the school of Verna, cruelly dilapidated; finally a small triumphal arch on which there stood, perhaps, a quadriga, or four-yoked chariot-team; some pedestals of statues erected to illustrious Pompeians, to Pansa, to Sallust, to Marcus Lucretius, Decidamius Rufus; some inscriptions in honor of this one or that one, of the great Romulus, of the aged AEneas,—­when all these have been seen, or glanced at, at least, you will have made the tour of the Forum.