FELICITER: good-luck greetings and acclamations
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 117). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Best supported
Date or witness: Pompeii and Herculaneum witnesses before 79 CE
Region: Pompeii and Herculaneum; wider Roman usage
Workbook date-sort bounds: unknown to 79 CE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A reusable wish for good fortune is adapted to different people, groups and visual forms.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
Benefiel documents more than 100 Pompeian occurrences, addressed to individuals, groups and towns. An incised public greeting names Priscus the engraver and Campanus the gem-maker. Variations include abbreviation to FEL, spelling variations, different addressees, and a Herculaneum greeting arranged as a ship.
What remains uncertain
The greeting is also used for emperors and formal occasions. Isolate informal local adaptations rather than treating every official acclamation as grassroots. Named craftsmen establish occupational participation, not that every writer was a worker or that origin was bottom-up.
Candidate-index family 1: FELICITER: good-luck greetings and acclamations
The workbook groups records 117 here and rates the family Best supported. This is a research shortlist, not proof of an independently established meme family.
Dated evidence: Pompeii and Herculaneum witnesses before 79 CE
Region: Pompeii and Herculaneum; wider Roman usage
Shortlist uncertainty: The greeting is also used for emperors and formal occasions. Isolate informal local adaptations rather than treating every official acclamation as grassroots. Named craftsmen establish occupational participation, not that every writer was a worker or that origin was bottom-up.
Workbook revision note: Added after correcting the humour-based selection