A 2,000-year-old stylus makes a point about ancient Roman humor
Enlarge / The text is inscribed on all four sides of the stylus. (credit: Museum of London Archaeology)
"I have come from the City. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me," reads the Latin inscription on the 2,000-year-old iron stylus. "I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able [to give] as generously as the way is long [and] as my purse is empty." The "City" almost certainly refers to Rome, and the souvenir stylus essentially boasts a more flowery version of today's "I went to Rome, and all I brought you was this pen."
The stylus dates to around 70 CE-about 20 years after the founding of Roman Londinium, a decade after a Celtic uprising burned it to the ground and about 50 years before the first stones were laid for Hadrian's Wall. It's among 14,000 artifacts unearthed during the construction of Bloomberg's European headquarters starting in 2013, and conservators are finally ready to put it on display.
Pre-BloombergThe site where the stylus was found stands on the banks of the ancient River Walbrook, a tributary of the Thames that now flows beneath the city's streets. Before London officials culverted and covered the river during the 1400s, it flowed through the center of London, and before that, it bisected Roman Londinium.
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