I mean to tell you, he knew how to blow that thing

[sovay]

I am not dead. I seem to have spent the last two weeks solid interacting with people and I am now in hibernation. I spent Saturday at a cherry blossom viewing party at kenjari's, Sunday at eredien's fantastically vegan Alice-in-Lud dinner. Yesterday I watched Séraphine (2008) with Viking Zen and it reminded me that I still haven't written up The Horse's Mouth (1958), which I saw in January and also loved. Or any of the plays I've seen since the weekend before last. Or the ballet. I did read some awesome graffiti in Latin.

Technically I found it last week when I was checking attestations of irrumo for a conversation with grimmwire; I should have posted it then, but I am engaged in losing a game of catch-up with my life. It was scratched on a wall of the basilica at Pompeii:

NARCISSUS
FELLATOR
MAXIMUS

(CIL IV 1825a)

Quite possibly this is the best thing I've read off a wall in my life. Because on the one hand it's your basic for-a-good-time-call graffito: Narcissus [is] the greatest at sucking cock. But on the other, it's completely a parody of Roman tria nomina—praenomen, nomen, cognomen ± agnomen, Quintus Fabius Maximus, Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Fuficius Fango,¹ etc. Thus proving that if you could go back in time and show Monty Python's Life of Brian to a Roman audience in first-century Judaea, they might be a little confused by the alien abduction,² but they'd think Biggus Dickus was hilarious.

1. My favorite Roman name, belonging to one of the great sad gits of the ancient world: the Octavian-appointed governor of Africa in 41 BCE who famously mistook a passing herd of hartebeest for enemy cavalry (being engaged at the time in a territorial skirmish with Titus Sextius, Antony's preferred candidate for the job) and committed suicide. I have no reason to believe I would have approved of his politics or liked him in person, but if I ever start keeping more of a household shrine than three coins, a Yule goat, and a shipwrecked glass bottle, I may light candles for him or something, if only apotropaically. His cognomen is Oscan for "mud."

2. Of course, modern audiences are, too.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What is a yule goat, and how do you fit it in your household shrine?

Sorry--I was guilty just then of posting before checking Wikipedia and the Internet at large. Now I know!

[twa-in-yin.livejournal.com]

In the Spanish version of The Life of Brian, "Biggus Dickus" is dubbed as "Pijus Maximus" -- "pijo" or "pija" being Spanish for, well, dick. Also, "Incontinentia Buttocks" is translated as "Incontinentia Suma". In both cases, I think it is a rare instance of the translation improving upon the original.

[coraline]

i think irrumo is a great verb and several of us are trying to bring it back into use :)

[larryhammer]

How have I managed to not hear of Gaius Fuficius Fango before now? His name -- it's so ... fluffy. It's like the name you'd give to a Roman mascot for a brand of marshmallows.

---L.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

The thing I loved most about my one year of high school Latin was the pains our teacher took to show us that the Romans were pretty much just like us, and that human beings are pretty much the same bastards no matter how far back in time you go, and will be laughing at poop jokes when the final trumpet (or space rock) sounds. They're comforting, those poop jokes.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Could "Narcissus Fellator Maximus" also be translated as "Narcissus [is] a huge cocksucker"?

[zdenka]

Ah, Romans . . .

I think you are completely right about them being amused by Life of Brian.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

who famously mistook a passing herd of hartebeest for enemy cavalry

"Gnor am I in the least like that dreadful hartebeest..."

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Delighted you're amongst us yet.

Thanks for sharing the amusing Latin grafitti. And I'd never heard of Gaius Fuficius Fango--I'm glad to have learnt of him now.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

If I may post a tangent, on the off chance you didn't know: tonight, 4/28 at 8 p.m. on Great Performances on your local PBS station, there is showing a brand spanking new, three and a half hour production of Hamlet with David Tennant as the Prince and Patrick Stewart as Claudius and the dead king's ghost. A DVD is soon to follow.

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Years ago, whswhs ran a role-playing game set in Roman Burdigala. In his preparatory research, he ran across one Gaius Cassius Vindex, "the Vindicator", which of course got pronounced Windex to much hilarity. Player characters included:

the Equitai Gaius Cassius Scipio (Sir John Fall Staff)
Correus Cordialis (Corey Hart)
Viridovix Saggitus (Green Archer)

...as well as a priestess of Dionysus named Vertica Thyrsopher (cue the Horizonta jokes) and a pair of Mithraist lawyers named Tauricus and Scipio who founded a Mithraeum. After the campaign, a real Mithraeum was discovered in the region with images of Taurus and Scorpio in it...

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

It was good to see you!
Also, my friend orichalcum is an expert on Roman prostitutes - I wonder if she's encountered this piece of graffiti in her research.