Ancient Roman Graffiti and Social Media
FREDERICK MOSTERT* AND ISABELLA FAZIO**[1] February 13, 2026
Archaeological studies of the public squares of ancient Rome and Pompeii revealed that social commentary was pervasive through graffiti in public spaces.[2] Such visible and public graffiti also included, most interestingly, false statements about politicians and demeaning comments about women.[3] Clearly, a sense of deja vu with social media at present.
The question, though, is what infrastructure did the ancient officials of Rome and Roman law have to deal with the ethical and legal issues of egregious, false statements in public spaces?
Based on what we know about Roman law, authorities were in a position to take steps to literally take down graffiti from the public forum, especially if it was damaging or defamatory to someone’s reputation, particularly senior politicians and their wives. For example, harmful graffiti concerning false statements about a senator or writing sexual comments about his wife were considered injurious.[4]
Roman law likely accounted for vandalizing public and private property. For example, the Lex Aquilia included penalties for damaging property, which can be construed to include graffiti.[5] Those caught could face fines or corporal punishment, in addition to the removal.[6] In addition, Roman legal authorities likely took down harmful messages in the public square, if it was considered an iniuria (injury) to one’s reputation.[7]
Reputation was critical in Roman communities, and public shaming was used to deter gossip. Public slander or defamation, even in graffiti, could be damaging to someone’s social standing and honor.[8] The Roman legal system included provisions under the Lex Aquilia and Lex Cornelia de iniuriis for cases of damage to reputation, which in principle could extend to harmful graffiti messages.[9] If graffiti was considered particularly offensive or damaging, it was likely common that property owners or local authorities would erase it.[10]
Now imagine if Roman law was applied today in the modern public square within cyberspace. Consider posting a selfie and realizing later it had been digitally altered in a sexual or demeaning way and shared across the internet. What is your recourse? Would the property owners or authorities scrape the surface on your behalf?
Take Taylor Swift. In January 2024, users created and shared sexually explicit images of Swift at a football game. At least 45 million users saw these images until X finally took the images down after 17 hours online, despite the images clearly violating the platform’s policies.[11] Putting Swift’s fame aside, deepfake pornography and verbal sexual harassment impact people of all backgrounds, occupations, and ages.[12]
Tech companies reported over 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused in 2018—compared to less than a million in 2008. Since then, AI technologies have made it even easier for criminals to create explicit images of children.[13] Survivors live in fear of being recognized from photos and videos on the internet. With AI technology, these images could be used as training data to generate AI-generated images from the originals. With time and the widespread use of AI, the problem is only growing larger for all to see.[14]
Did the Romans have it right? Like their engineering, architecture, roads, and aqueducts, were the Romans better at protecting against verbal sexual harassment and misinformation in public? Defamatory speech, insults, curses, and verbal abuse was deemed defamatory speech, injurious to the person, and those harmed received legal protection. The actio iniuriarum (injury action) covered corpus (body), fama (reputation), and dignitas (dignity). Dignitas also covered family relationships, sexual integrity, protection of one’s intimate sphere, self-esteem, freedom from insults, and identity. Most importantly, the “moral reputation” of women and children were safeguarded as well. The Romans built a legal system in which if any speech caused harm to the “inner self” of a victim, legal recourse was available.[15] As part of a duty of care to its society and safeguarding humanity through an ethical and principled application of the Roman “ius naturale” (that law which is common to need of all humankind), Roman law developed the legal principle of “dignitas” as part of its humanistic approach.
In the digital, modern public square, these protections appear much less infeasible. With the rise of AI and increased online interaction, debates are ongoing about the new layers of rights between the “inner and outer personal dignity realms.” However, these rights are not new at all; they were implemented in a legal system over 2,000 years ago. So-called “personality rights” are not a novel phenomenon whatsoever—if anything, they are a resurgence. The Roman legal system bridged the gap between the body and the legal interests of the inner self, such as reputation and dignity. If these were violated in any way, Roman authorities could act immediately to protect their citizens.[16]
*Frederick Mostert is a Professor of Practice at Notre Dame Law School and The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and a Research Fellow at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre.
**Isabella Fazio is a J.D. Candidate at Notre Dame Law School.
[1] We are also greatly appreciative to Anastasia Matilde Freschi, Legal Counsel Indiana Production S.p.A., and Luiss Law School alumna, Rome, Italy.
[2] Kristin Ohlson, Reading the Writing on Pompeii’s Walls, SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, July 26, 2010, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/reading-the-writing-on-pompeiis-walls-1969367/.
[3] Those who wished to leave a mark could scratch or etch messages on the exterior of walls, columns, and public buildings. Whether a common person or an elite, graffiti was accessible to everyone, making it a democratic form of expression. ALISON E. COOLEY AND M.G.L COOLEY, POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM (2014) 2, 7, 58, 59, 60, 79, 84, 108, 110, 111, 208, 231. Matthew McIntosh, Political and Personal Themes of the Graffiti in Ancient Pompeii, BREMINATE, May 21, 2020, https://brewminate.com/political-and-personal- themes-of-the-graffiti-in-ancient-pompeii. Roman graffiti was a way for all people to share their thoughts on social and political issues, providing an inside look into the minds of the everyday Roman citizen. Id. Matthew McIntosh, Political and Personal Themes of the Graffiti in Ancient Pompeii, BREMINATE May 21, 2020, https://brewminate.com/political-and-personal-themes-of-the-graffiti-in-ancient-pompeii.
[4] Talya Deibel, The Civil Law and the Inner Self: Roman Iniuria and the Transformation of the Private Sphere, 16 J. OF CIV. L. STUD. 1, (2024) 53, 92. George Long, Injuria, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities 637-638 (William Smith ed., John Murray 1875), https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Injuria.html.
[5] Law of Caesar on Municipalities, THE AVALON PROJECT AT YALE LAW SCHOOL, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/law_of_caesar.asp. Aedile, BRITANNICA, https://www.britannica.com/topic/aedile. Joe Sampson, lex Aquilia on wrongful damage to property, OXFORD CLASSICAL DICTIONARY, June 25, 2018, https://oxfordre.com/classics/classics/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-8261. Andrew Mason, The Standards of Care & the Lex Aquilia Roman Laws, THE ROMAN EMPIRE, https://roman-empire.net/society/lex-aquilia-laws.
[6] Nils Jansen and Sandy Steel, Delictual Liability in Roman Law in The STRUCTURE OF TORT LAW (Dec. 2021).
[7] The enforcement of these laws depended on the offender’s social status as well as the status of the graffiti’s subject. Deibel, supra note 3, at 76. John B Kamp, Patriarchy and Gender Law in Ancient Rome and Colonial America, 8 THE IOWA HIST. REV. 1, 43, 45 (2020) https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/iowa-historical-review/article/1630/galley/110627/view/.
[8] Deibel, supra note 3, at 60.
[9] Id. at 76.
[10] Id. Robert Morstein-Marx, Political Graffiti in the Late Roman Republic: “Hidden Transcripts” and “Common Knowledge,” POLITISCHE KOMMUNIKATION AND ÖFFENTLICHE MEINUNG IN DER ANTIKEN Welt 199 (C. Kuhn ed., 2012).
[11] Halle Nelson, Taylor Swift and the Dangers of Deepfake Pornography, 7 Feb. 2024, https://www.nsvrc.org/blogs/feminism/taylor-swift-and-dangers-deepfake-pornography. Karen Travers and Emmanuelle Saliba, Fake explicit Taylor Swift images: White House is ‘alarmed’, 26 Jan. 2024, https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-calls-legislation-regulate-ai-amid-explicit/story?id=106718520.
[12] Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, ENOUGH ABUSE, https://enoughabuse.org/get-the-facts/online-child-sexual-abuse/.
[13] Michael H. Keller and Gabriel J.X. Dance, The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong?, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 29 Sep. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html.
[14] Study shows AI image-generators are being trained on explicit photos of children, PBS NEWS, 20 Dec. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/study-shows-ai-image-generators-are-being-trained-on-explicit-photos-of-children. Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, supra note 11.
[15] Id. at 55-56.
[16] Id. at 57.