CHAPTER III. ANCIENT FORMS OF ADVERTISING.

WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.—Antigonus, the hero of 2112 victories. Superbus, a comparatively unknown
man. Casuntius, the master of the latter, is supposed to be in the act of advising him to yield to the invincible retiarius.
The other figure represents Aniketos Achilles, a great Samnite gladiator, who merited the title of invincible. — WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.—Antigonus, the hero of 2112 victories. Superbus, a comparatively unknown man. Casuntius, the master of the latter, is supposed to be in the act of advising him to yield to the invincible retiarius. The other figure represents Aniketos Achilles, a great Samnite gladiator, who merited the title of invincible.

Those who had premises to let or sell affixed a short notice to the house itself, and more detailed bills were posted at the “advertising stations.” Thus in Plautus’s “Trinummus,” Act v., the indignant Callicles says to his spendthrift son, “You have dared to put up in my absence, and unknown to me, that this house is to be sold”—(“Ædes venales hasce inscribit literis”). Sometimes, also, the inscription, “Illico ædes venales” (“here is a house for sale”) appears to have been painted on the door, or on the album. An auctioneer would describe a house as “Villa bona beneque edificata” (a good and well-built house), and full details of the premises were given in the larger placards painted on walls. In the street of the Fullers in Pompeii occurs the following inscription, painted in red, over another which had been painted in black and whitewashed over,—

IN . PRAEDIS . JULIAE . S . P . F . FELICIS LOCANTUR