Suburbanus. Other suburbs were situated at the harbour and at the salt works (salinae).
No manuscripts have been discovered in Pompeii. Inscriptions have naturally been found in considerable numbers, and we are indebted to them for much information concerning the municipal arrangements of the town, as well as the construction of various edifices and other public works. The most interesting of, these are such as are written in the Oscan dialect, which appears to have continued in official use down to the time when the Roman colony was introduced by Sulla. From that time the Latin language was certainly the only one officially employed, though Oscan may have still been spoken by a portion at least of the population. Still more curious, and almost peculiar to Pompeii, are the numerous writings painted upon the walls, which have generally a semi public character, such as recommendations of candidates for municipal offices, advertisements, &c., and the scratched inscriptions (graffiti), which are generally the mere expression of individual impulse and feeling, frequently amatory, and not uncommonly conveyed in rude and imperfect verses. In one house also a whole box was found filled with written tablets-diptychs and triptychs—containing the record of the accounts of a banker named L. Caecilius jucundus.
See A. Mau, Pompeii: its Life and Art (trans. by F. W. Kelsey, 2nd ed., New York and London, 1902; 2nd revised edition of the German original, Pompeii in Leben und Kunst, Leipzig, 1908), the best general account written by the greatest authority on the subject, to which our description owes much, with full references to other sources of information; and, for later excavations, Notizie degli Scavi and Römische Mitteilungen (in the latter, articles by Mau), passim. For the inscriptions on the tablets and on the walls, Corpus inscriptionum latinarum, vol. iv. (ed. Zangemeister and Mau). Recent works on the Pompeian frescoes are those of Berger, in Die Maltechnik des Alterthums, and A. P. Laurie, Greek and Roman Methods of Painting (1910). (E. H. B.; T. As.)
Oscan Inscriptions.—The surviving inscriptions which can be dated, mainly by the gradual changes in their alphabet, are of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., some certainly belonging to the Gracchan period. The oldest of the Latin inscriptions are C.I.L. x. 794, the record of the building of colonnades in the forum by 'the “ quaestor ” V. Popidius, and two or three election placards (C.I.L. iv. 29, 30, 36) of one R. Caecilius, a candidate for the same office. It cannot be an accident that the alphabet of these inscriptions belongs distinctly to Sullan or pre-Sullan times, while no such officer as a quaestor appears in any later documents (e.g. in C.I.L. x. 844, it is the duoviri who build the small theatre), but does appear in the Oscan inscriptions. Hence it has been inferred that these oldest Latin inscriptions are also older than Sulla’s colony; if so, Latin must have been in use, and in fairly common use (if the programmata were to be of any service), in Pompeii at that date. On the other hand, the good condition of many of the painted Oscan inscriptions at the times when they were first uncovered (1797 onwards) and their subsequent decay and the number of Oscan graffiti appear to make it probable that at the Christian era Oscan was still spoken in the town. The two languages undoubtedly existed side by side during the last century B.C., Latin being alone recognized officially and in society, while Oscan was preserved mainly by intercourse with the country folk who frequented the market. Thus beside many Latin programmata later than those just mentioned we have similar inscriptions in Oscan, addressed to Oscan-speaking voters, where IIIIner. obviously relates to the quattuorvirate, a title characteristic of the Sullan and triumviral colonies. An interesting stone containing nine cavities for measures of capacity found in Pompeii and now preserved in the Naples Museum with Oscan inscriptions erased in antiquity shows that the Oscan system of measurement was modified so as to correspond more closely with the Roman, about 14 B.C., by the duoviri, who record their work in a Latin inscription (C.I.L. x. 793; for the Oscan see. Ital. Dial. p. 67).
See further Osca Lingua, and R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, pp. 54 sqq.; Nissen, Pompeianische Studien; J. Beloch, Campanien, 2nd ed. (R. S. C.)
POMPEY, the common English form of Pompeius, the name of a Roman plebeian family.
1. Gnaeus Pompeius (106–48 B.C.), the triumvir, the first of his family to assume the surname Magnus, was born on the 36th of September in the same year as Cicero. When only seventeen he fought together with his father in the Social War. He took the side of Sulla against Marius and Cinna, but for a time, in consequence of the success of the Marians, he kept in the background. On the return of Sulla from the Mithradatic War Pompey joined him with an army of three legions, which he had raised in Picenum. Thus early in life he connected himself with the cause of the aristocracy, and a decisive victory which he won in 83 over the Marian armies gained for him from Sulla the title of Imperator. He followed up his successes in Italy by defeating the Marians in Sicily and Africa, and on his return to Rome in 81, though he was still merely an eques and not legally qualified to celebrate a triumph, he was allowed by general consent to enjoy this distinction, While Sulla greeted him with the surname of Magnus, a title he always retained and handed down to his sons. Latterly, his relations with Sulla were somewhat strained, but after his death he resisted the attempt of the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus to repeal the constitution. In conjunction with A. Lutatius Catulus, the other consul, he defeated Lepidus when he tried to march upon Rome, and drove him out of Italy (77). With some fears and misgivings the senate permitted him to retain the command of his victorious army, and decided on sending him to Spain, where the Marian party, under Sertorius, was still formidable; Pompey was fighting in Spain from 76 to 71, and though at first he met with serious reverses he was ultimately successful. After Sertorius had fallen a victim to assassination, Pompey easily defeated his successor Perperna and put an end to the War. In 71 he won fresh glory by finally crushing the slave insurrection of Spartacus, That same year, amid great popular enthusiasm, but without the hearty concurrence of the senate, whom he had alarmed by talking of restoring the dreaded power of the tribunes, he was elected with M. Licinius Crassus to the consulship, and entered Rome in triumph (December 31) for his Spanish victories. He was legally ineligible for the consulship, having held none of the lower offices of state and being under age. The following year saw the work of Sulla undone; the tribunate restored, and the administration of justice was no longer was left exclusively to the senate, but was to be shared by it with the wealthier portion of the middle class, the equites (q.v.) and the tribuni aerarii.[1] The change was really necessary, as the provincials could never, get justice from a court composed of senators, and it was, carried into effect by Pompey with Caesar’s aid. Pompey rose still higher in popularity, and on the motion of the tribune Aulus Gabinius in 67 he was entrusted with an extraordinary command over the greater part of the empire, specially for the extermination of piracy in the Mediterranean, by which the corn supplies of Rome were seriously endangered, while the high prices of provisions caused great distress. He was completely successful; the price of corn fell immediately on his appointment, and in forty days the Mediterranean was cleared of the pirates. Next year, on the proposal of the tribune Manilius, his powers were still further extended, the care of all the provinces in the East being put under his control for three years together with the conduct of the war against, Mithradates VI., who had recovered from the defeats he had sustained from Lucullus and regained his dominions. Both Caesar and Cicero supported the tribune’s proposal, which was easily carried in spite of the interested opposition of the senate and the aristocracy, several of whom held provinces which would now be practically under Pompey’s command. The result of Pompey’s operations was eminently satisfactory. The wild tribes of the Caucasus were cowed by the Roman arms, and Mithradates himself fled across the Black Sea to Panticapaeum (modern Kertch). In the years 64 and 63 Syria and Palestine were annexed to Rome’s empire. After the capture of Jerusalem Pompey is said to have entered the Temple, and even the Holy of Holies. Asia and the East generally were left under the subjection of petty kings who were mere vassals of Rome. Several cities had been founded which became centres of Greek life and civilization.
Pompey, now in his forty-fifth year, returned to Italy in 61 to
