Virgil Quote Found Etched on Ancient Roman Jar

Researchers say the ancient inscription is the first of its kind ever discovered.

The three-inch-long pottery shard contains only parts of a passage from Virgil's Georgics | University of Cordoba

Nearly 2,000 years before the modern-day novelty mug made its way into stores, an ancient reader carved a literary quotation into a piece of Roman cookware. Researchers have determined that the inscription on an 1,800-year-old pottery fragment is a quote from the poet Virgil, who lived in the first century B.C.E.

Unearthed in southern Spain, the three-inch-long shard was once part of a Roman amphora, a jar that would have held olive oil. The inscription is thought to be the first literary quotation found on an amphora, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Study co-author Antònia Soler i Nicolau, a classical language scholar at the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain, realized the inscription looked familiar. Eventually the team figured it out. The text comes from the Georgics, a 29 B.C.E. poem by Virgil about how to care for a farm. It was difficult to identify because the ancient inscription only contains segments of the full passage, which reads:

Auoniam[pingui]

glandem m[utauit]

aresta, poq[ulaque]

[inuen]tisAqu[eloia]

[miscu]it [uuis]

C[ambió] la bellota aonia por la espiga [fértil] [y mezcl]ó

el ag[ua] [con la uva descubierta]

The full passage translates to:

O you brightest lights of the universe that lead the passing year through the skies,

Bacchus and kindly Ceres, since by your gifts fat wheat ears replaced Chaonian acorns,

and mixed Achelous’ water with newly discovered wine, and you, fauns, the farmer’s local gods, (come dance, together, fauns and dryad girls!)

your gifts I sing.

The identity of this Virgil fan remains a mystery. Maybe, the researchers theorize, this person worked at the factory where the object was made and was a skilled craftsman replicating the lines from memory, or even a child laborer practicing their writing.

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