The most of these announcements are but the proclamations of candidates for office.  Pompeii was evidently swallowed up at the period of the elections.  Sometimes it is an elector, sometimes a group of citizens, then again a corporation of artisans or tradesmen, who are recommending for the office of aedile or duumvir the candidate whom they prefer.  Thus, Paratus nominates Pansa, Philippus prefers Caius Aprasius Felix; Valentinus, with his pupils, chooses Sabinus and Rufus.  Sometimes the elector is in a hurry; he asks to have his candidate elected quickly.  The fruiterers, the public porters, the muleteers, the salt-makers, the carpenters, the truckmen, also unite to push forward the aedile who has their confidence.  Frequently, in order to give more weight to its vote, the corporation declares itself unanimous.  Thus, all the goldsmiths preferred a certain Photinus—­a fishmonger, thinks Overbeck—­for aedile.  Let us not forget the sleepers, who declare for Vatia.  By the way, who were these friends of sleep?  Perhaps they were citizens who disliked noise; perhaps, too, some association of nocturnal revellers thus disguised under an ironical and reassuring title.  Sometimes the candidate is recommended by a eulogistic epithet indicated by seals, a style of abbreviation much in use among the ancients.  The person recommended is always a good man, a man of probity, an excellent citizen, a very moral individual.  Sometimes positive wonders are promised on his behalf.  Thus, after having designated Julius Polybius for the aedileship, an elector announces that he will bring in good bread.  Electoral intrigue went still further. We are pretty well on in that respect, but I think that the ancients were our masters.  I read the following bare-faced avowal on a wall:  Sabinum aedilem, Procule, fac et ille te faciet. (Make Sabinus aedile, O Proculus, and he may make thee such!) Frank and cool that, it strikes me!

But enough of elections; there is no lack of announcements of another character.  Some of these give us the programme of the shows in the amphitheatre; such-and-such a troop of gladiators will fight on such a day; there will be hunting matches and awnings, as well as sprinklings of perfumed waters to refresh the multitude (venatio, vela, sparsiones).  Thirty couples of gladiators will ensanguine the arena.

There were, likewise, posters announcing apartments to let.

Some of these inscriptions, either scratched or painted, were witticisms or exclamations from facetious passers-by.  One ran thus:  “Oppius the porter is a robber, a rogue!” Sometimes there were amorous declarations:  “Augea loves Arabienus.”  Upon a wall in the Street of Mercury, an ivy leaf, forming a heart, contained the gentle name of Psyche.  Elsewhere a wag, parodying the style of monumental inscriptions, had announced that under the consulate of L. Monius Asprenas and A. Plotius, there was born to him the foal of an ass.  “A wine jar has been lost and he who brings it back shall have such a reward from Varius; but he who will bring the thief shall have twice as much.”