Roman inscriptions as (mass?) media

Nowadays we live in a society constantly exposed to all types of media and social networks. Two thousand years ago, from the Principate of Augustus and lasting for more than two centuries, hundreds of thousands of messages recorded on monumental stone and bronze supports flooded Rome and the Roman cities of the western Mediterranean, competing for the attention of their inhabitants. Thus was born the first written mass communication medium known in history.

But what messages did they convey? Were many men able to read them? Many women? Who turned to this particular means of communication? Why did this form of communication emerge and disappear? All these questions and others related to the level of literacy in Imperial Roman society and the role that writing played in it will be addressed through various personal stories attested to in the inscriptions.