Ink for the Wretches: Tattoos in Ancient Greece and Rome (2025)

In the Greco-Roman world, stigma, meaning a tattoo in ancient Greek, served as a marker of guilt, failure, and subjugation. According to Herodotus, the Greeks learned the "art" of penal tattooing from the Persians in the sixth century B.C.E. Ink became a tool for marking prisoners of war, slaves, and criminals.

One of the most famous cases of war tattoos comes from the fifth century B.C.E. when the mighty Athenians defeated the Samians. The victors tattooed the foreheads of their prisoners of war with the cherished image of an owl – the emblem of Athens. The favor was swiftly returned when the Samians defeated the Athenians and, in turn, tattooed their prisoners with a Samian warship (what goes around comes around).

The Greek philosopher Plutarch also reports that during the Siege of Syracuse (part of the Peloponnesian War) that resulted in the defeat of Athenians in 413 B.C.E., the 7,000 captives' foreheads were not only tattooed with a horse, the emblem of Syracuse, but furthermore ended up sold into slavery.

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Those forced tattoos were not only a weapon of domination but were also used as a "manifestation of victory." As long as one lived, he would be a living conquest. For the Greeks, to be tattooed during the war was a mark of defeat and failure from which one could never escape. After all, in the Greek mind, only a pushover would submit to being branded with a tattoo. A "real" proud man would rather commit suicide. And so, for the families of those vanquished, it was important to make sure that their sons remained "untouched".

One such example comes from Megara. The gravestone commemorates a Greek hoplite who fought and fell in battle during the Greco-Persian War of 480-479 B.C.E.. The inscription reads: "I, Pollis, dear son of Asopichos, speak: Not being a coward, I, for my part, perished at the hands of the tattooers."

The memorandum sits atop a relief depicting naked Pollis armed with his shield and holding his spear. Whether the inscription reflects reality is not important. What mattered for the family who commissioned the gravestone in memory of their beloved son was how he was remembered: brave and invincible, for he would not allow himself to be blemished with ink.

Ink them all

Another use for ink was to brand human property. Tattoos worked as tags, especially for disobedient or runaway slaves. Consequently, the letter delta (Δ/δ)- the first letter of the word doulos (slave) became a symbol of subjugation. Some went even further, branding their properties with their own names so they could be easily identified and safely returned "home".

Tattooing specific instructions required some additional ink and probably a professional hand. Tattooed commands like "Stop me, I'm a runaway!" were a common sight in ancient Greece and later Rome. These dog-like instructions were not only dehumanizing, but they provided a lifelong ostracism.

In Rome, a former slave with tattoos could never become a citizen (the ultimate Roman goal); he would instead rise to the title of peregrinus – a freedman with no political rights. To make things worse, following the Augustus decree, formerly enslaved people who received tattoos were banned from coming within a hundred miles of Rome. After all, let's be civil, shall we?

Yet, sometimes tattoos played a decisive role in history. Sending secret messages through enemy lines is as old as the history of warfare.

One of the most ingenious recorded instances was that of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus. When Histiaeus was held prisoner by the Persian king Darius I in Susa, he used his most trusted slave as a war pigeon. He shaved the man's scalp and had the following sentence tattooed on it: "Aristagoras should revolt against the king". When the hair finally grew back, the slave was sent to his master's son-in-law, Aristagoras. Upon his arrival, once again, his head was shaved, which launched the Ionian Revolt against the Persian rule, lasting from 499 BC to 493 BC.

The ink also had a sweet spot for those convicted of crimes. Penal insignia acted as noticeboards of guilt, disclosing offenses. For instance, a thief would be marked with the letters 'FVR' (Fur- Latin for 'thief'). The monogram would never allow him to escape his past wrongdoing; he would forever remain a thief.

According to Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, those found guilty of making false accusations were honored with the later 'K' for kalumniator on their precious foreheads.

Some tried to hide their tattoos with the help of splenia (bandages). However, these efforts often proved to be more humiliating than helpful. In his epigrams, the Roman poet Martial portrays a sleek, polished man whose forehead is "wrapped" with patches: "always sitting on the front benches, whose sardonyxed hand glistens even at this distance; whose cloak has so often drunk deep of the Tyrian dye, and whose toga is made to surpass unspotted snow; him, whose well-oiled hair smells of all the essences from Marcellus' shop, and whose arms look sleek and polished, with not a hair unextracted? A latchet of later than yesterday's make sits upon his crescent-adorned leg, a scarlet shoe decks his foot unhurt by its pressure, and numerous patches cover his forehead like stars. Are you ignorant what the thing is? Remove the patches, and you will read his name."

Some sought more drastic methods to deal with the relics of their past. Aetius of Amida, the Greek court physician to the emperor Justinian, advised the salabrasion method for tattoo removal. The practice included the application of niter and terebinth resin, which would have eaten away the skin over the period of twenty agonizing days - an ancient prototype for tattoo laser removal.

Sometimes, tattoos were also given to those with a wrong "attitude". The slightly impulsive emperor Caligula went as far as tattooing (stigmatum notis) some noble Roman youths before condemning them to slavery. He also initiated the practice of tattooing the darlings of Rome –gladiators.

There was also Emperor Valerian, who was the first Roman emperor to be taken captive during war. He was seized during the battle of Edessa by the Persian king Shapur I, sending a shock wave throughout the Roman world. Did he receive himself a little souvenir from the Persian court? It's unlikely, though he definitely deserved one, for the emperor himself was an enthusiast of ink. He extended the practice to those with "corrupted beliefs" - the early Christians whom he ordered to be tattooed with crucifixes. According to Pontius of Carthage, the sentence quickly became widespread, and so "many confessors were sealed with a second inscription on their distinguished foreheads."

Likewise, Hilary, the bishop of Poitiers, wrote that his distinguished colleagues were tattooed on their "catholic foreheads (...) with the inscription: "condemned to the mines". When Constantine the Great took over the bruised imperial business, the practice of tattooing on the face was discouraged:, after all, the face was "formed in the likeness of heavenly beauty." The persistent Romans turned instead to tattoos on other body parts, usually the hands, and calves.

In 787 C.E., the Second Council of Nicaea banned tattooing outright. Some write that the practice was completely banned, while others claim that tattoos were okay if they proclaimed Christian faith.

For the refined Greeks and Romans, it was unlikely that there was a tattoo that could trigger envy. Herodotus writes that among the many cultures and tribes with which they came in contact, tattoos were always an important part of their identities. The Greek historian notes that for the Thracians, "the possession of tattoos is held to be a sign of breeding, while the lack of them is a mark of low birth".

The reasoning probably only confirmed the Greeks and Romans in their view that tattoos were for the savages; after all, for them a civilized person would not use his own body as a living canvas.