Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis, qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas
“I marvel, O wall, that you have not collapsed in ruins, since you bear the tedious scribblings of so many writers.”
Pompeii graffito (CIL IV 1904)
What does “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis, qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas” mean?
Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis, qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas translates as “I marvel, O wall, that you have not collapsed in ruins, since you bear the tedious scribblings of so many writers.”
A wall covered in graffiti complains, so to speak, about the bad writing it must carry. It is a witty reminder that people have always loved to scribble on walls, and that not all of it is worth reading.
“Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis …” word by word
| Latin | English | Grammar |
|---|---|---|
| Admiror | I marvel | first person singular present indicative of admiror, “I wonder at, I marvel” (a deponent verb: passive form, active meaning) |
| paries | wall | vocative singular of paries, “wall”; the wall is addressed directly |
| te | that you | accusative singular of the pronoun tu, “you”; subject of the infinitive in an indirect statement |
| non | not | adverb of negation |
| cecidisse | have fallen | perfect active infinitive of cado, “I fall”; with ruinis it means “to have fallen in ruins” |
| ruinis | in ruins | ablative plural of ruina, “collapse, ruin”; with cecidisse, “to have fallen in ruins” |
| qui | you who | nominative singular masculine relative pronoun, referring back to paries; here it carries the sense “since you” |
| tot | so many | indeclinable adjective, agreeing with scriptorum |
| scriptorum | of writers | genitive plural of scriptor, “writer” |
| taedia | the tedious scribblings | accusative plural of taedium, “weariness, tedium”; direct object of sustineas |
| sustineas | you bear | second person singular present subjunctive active of sustineo, “I hold up, endure”; subjunctive because qui here gives a reason |
How to pronounce “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis …”
Classical Latin keeps c hard (keh-kih-DIS-seh) and says ae as “eye” (TYE-dee-ah); Church Latin says c before e or i as ch and ae as “eh”. Stress falls on the second syllable of admiror, ruinis and sustineas, the third of cecidisse and scriptorum, and the first of paries and taedia.
The story behind it
Word for word the couplet says: “I wonder, wall, that you have not fallen in ruins, you who bear the tedium of so many writers.” It is a joke in the form of an address to the wall itself, and it works because the line is itself scribbled on a wall.
It is a graffito from Pompeii, the Roman town buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The ash preserved thousands of scratched and painted wall inscriptions, from election slogans and love notes to jokes like this one.
The couplet is catalogued in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the standard collection of Latin inscriptions, as CIL IV 1904. It was written on the walls of the Basilica, the theatre and the amphitheatre at Pompeii, and it is a favourite example of how ordinary Romans joked about graffiti.
How to use “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis …”
Fits a guestbook wall, a chalkboard, a street-art exhibition or a caption under a photo of a heavily scribbled wall. It also suits a witty line in a talk or essay about graffiti, writing and bad poetry.
- Latin
- Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis, qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas
- English
- I marvel, O wall, that you have not collapsed in ruins, since you bear the tedious scribblings of so many writers.
- Source
- Pompeii graffito (CIL IV 1904)
- Era
- Classical
- Theme
- Humor
Common mistakes
- Cecidisse here is the perfect infinitive of cado, “to fall”, with short vowels (ce-ci-dis-se). The verb caedo, “to cut”, has a similar form with a long i, cecidisse, but the sense here is clearly “to have fallen”.
- Paries is the vocative here, meaning “O wall”. In the dictionary it is a masculine noun of the third declension, and its nominative and vocative look the same.
- The sentence does not mean that the wall is tired of the writers. It means the wall is astonished that it has not collapsed under the weight of so much dull writing.
- Only the second line is sometimes quoted alone. Without the first line it loses the address to the wall and the joke.
Questions about “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis …”
What does “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis” mean?
“I marvel, wall, that you have not fallen in ruins, you who bear the tedium of so many writers.” It is a joke about too much bad graffiti.
Where does “Admiror, paries” come from?
It is a Roman graffito from Pompeii, preserved because Vesuvius buried the town in AD 79. It is catalogued as CIL IV 1904.
How do you pronounce “Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis”?
In Classical Latin: ad-MEE-ror PAH-rih-ehs teh nohn keh-kih-DIS-seh roo-EE-nees. In Church Latin the c in cecidisse becomes ch.
Is “Admiror, paries” a real ancient quote or a modern invention?
It is real. It was scratched on walls in the Basilica, the theatre and the amphitheatre at Pompeii, so the joke was clearly well known.
More to explore
Translation and grammar checked by Latin Quoter · last reviewed November 2026
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