Graffiti Was a Powerful Form of Protest in Ancient Rome – as Gladiator II Shows

Claire Holleran/The Conversation

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II features a scene in which a senator, seated at a pavement cafe in Rome, reads a printed newspaper. The moment has caused history buffs around the world to wince – the printing press wouldn’t be invented for another 1,200 years. But the film also depicts a much more authentic form of mass communication in the ancient city: writing on walls.

This includes not only the formal and well-planned inscriptions shown on buildings and triumphal arches, but the informal scratchings, painted notices and charcoal messages scribbled on the walls of the city.

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