Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1904-08-26
The LAST ELECTION
IN ANCIENT FP0OMpEH
Was Held in A. D. 10, just Be-
fore the Big Spectacle Was
Pulled Off.
HAS BEEN LITTLE CHANGE
The Voters Were Joilied Up by the
Candidate With Free Drinks and
Strong Talks, Just About
as in Present Times.

the walls of the e~xcavated streets In
Pompeii formed the subject of a paper
read by Mr.. Joseph Oxford before the
Royal Society of Literature on The
Last Municipal Election at Pompeii."
The Pompelians had, of course. no
red white and blue bills to paste
about over likely spaces, but instead
they wrote UP on prominent walls their
requests, or advice, or comments In
regard to this or that candidate for
municipal onors The Pompeiian
municipal honors for which candidates
were standing in A. d. 10, the year in
which the lava of Vesuvius preserved
forever q picture of the customs n
manner of hat curious Oscan
city, were those of the edileship and
the duumvirate. All burgesses had a
vote In electing these four magistrates
the duumviri and the two ediles-
and the interest which was taken in
the election is shown by the fact that
perhaps one in three or four of the
electors (there; were possibly 10000 in
habitants, and there are probably 1,500
graffti referring 20 the election)
thought it worth while to write up on
his house wall, or in some public place.
his Views as to the merits of the can
didate.
Candidate Must Be rs and Rich.
AT Pompeii a man seeking municipal
honors had TO be at least 25 years old
and had to prove that he possessed a
fortune of at least e 500. In conse-
quence of this property qualification,
only wealthy men competed for NUM-
cipal honors; indeed, 1T would have
been useless for men only Just possess
ing the requisite qualifications to come
out as candidates, since it was neces-
sary before asking to be elected to
promise a considerable sum to be ex-
pended on public games, or on works
likely to be of permanent benefit to
the city. At Pompeii. however, which
was a rich city, there seems to nave
been actually a plethora of candidates
for municipal honors, since a law was
made forbidding any intending candi-
date to spend a penny, for two years
before coming up for election, on any
public festival or in donations to the
people; the intending candidate might
not even ask more than nine persons
TO a private dinner! If the candidate
or one of his "clients"-the clients"
were in a sense the election agents
broke these rather stringent rules he
was fined 5000 sesterces (about R40),
Competition for offices which carried
no pay with them must have been
pretty severe when a man could be
prosecuted for bribery and corruption
even before actually seeking votes al
the poll.
Just as today, too, the candidate had
to take into account the probable at
titude Of various societies, clubs, guilds
and unions. The objects of these clubs
and unions, however, were not always
quite so respectable as those OF the
temperance bvotherhoods, free. trade
leagues and empire leagues of our
modern English times. They seem. in
deed, to have resembled in their meth
DDS Tammany rather than West Ham
or Cherrsey. There were ColIegia and
Hetairi-the more luxurious Greek but
look on life flourished in Pompeii-
with which the prospective candidate
had to lea There were the pilicrepi,
the clubs OF ball players, who prob
ably wanted first and foremost excit-
ing public games; there were the Tate
drinkers and the long sleepers" (uni-
yersi dormientes), who clearly were
not In favor of early closing; and there
were the little thieves tfurunculi),
who were perhaps a kind of "hooli-
gans."
Plenty of Treating.
AS for the voters VINO favored free
drinking and free sleeping, you can still
see over a Pompeiian tavern door the in
scription: Here you can have a drink
for one as"( about three farthings): ANY
body who likes TO pay more can have a
better draught. What will you pay for a
slasS g 1sSiSTsaT but besides the guilds
and the clubs, there was another valuable
electoral interest in the religious sets, or
votaries of the various deities.
Occasionally peculiar reasons are given
In the graffiti for voting for particular
candidates. One reads, for instances.
"Proculus, vote for Sabinus, and he will
vote for you,'' which is possibly the classi-
cal rendering, of Scratch my back and I'll
scratch yours This, again, arouses at
tention: .Attalus, you're asleep, Suellus
Is wake" Wake up, England, and
vote for jones'" Is the obvious parallel
Sometimes. however, the writer Of the
g~raffito, though honest. was poor in ideas:
still, Vote for Publis, ". b." (vir bonus
"a good MANI, is at least concise. ID. r..
p" again-"worthy or public office ''tha
man you wants. straightforward
enough. Now and then client or voter, in
contrast to the abrupt ~electioneer, is a
most polished fellow. "Gavius is a man
serviceable to public interests. Do elect
him, / beg Of you. IS a pleasing example
OF the polite form of solicitation. A rarer,
though apparently successful, form OF APP
plication for suffrage was the representa-
ton of the candidate as 'one who has fol
years been identified with the best inter
ests and traditions of the city" Thus the
hacker OF a candidate belonging to a very
old Oscar family ~purposely spells the
candidates name In the old Oscar style
~ AL.A- - 4