Many of the buildings along Pompeii’s streets are covered with painted messages extolling the virtues of candidates running for office nearly 2,000 years appear on three walls of a room that also contains the residence’s lararium, or household altar, which is decorated with serpents. The political graffiti encouraged voters to elect a man named Aulus Rustius Verus for the office of aedile, a position responsible for public building and infrastructure.
