A wit:

"Zetema mulier ferebat filium simulem sui nec meus erat, nec mi
simulat; sed vellem esset meus, et ego volebam ut meus esset."

Tennis-players scribble:

"Amianthus, Epaphra, Tertius ludant cum Hedysio, Incundus Nolanus
petat, numeret Citus et Stacus Amianthus."

Wordsworth remarks that these two names, Tertius and Epaphras, are found
in the epistles of St. Paul. Epaphras (in Latin, Epaphra; the suppressed
letter _s_ shows that this Pompeian was merely a slave) is very often
named on the walls of the little city; he is accused, moreover, of being
beardless or destitute of hair (_Epaphra glaber est_), and of knowing
nothing about tennis. (_Epaphra pilicrepus non es_). This inscription
was found all scratched over, probably by the hand of Epaphras himself,
who had his own feelings of pride as a fine player.

Thus it is that the stones of Pompeii are full of revelations with
reference to its people. The Basilica is easy to reconstruct and provide
with living occupants. Yonder duumviri, up between the Corinthian
columns; in front of them the accused; here the crowd; lovers confiding
their secrets to the wall; thinkers scribbling their maxims on them;
wags getting off their witticisms in the same style; the slaves, in
fine, the poor, announcing to the most remote posterity that they had,
at least, the game of tennis to console them for their abject condition!
Still three small apartments the extremity of which rounded off into
semicircles (probably inferior tribunes where subordinate magistrates,
such as commissioners or justices of the peace, had their seats); then