Jul 3, 2023 4 min read

On June 23, an unknown male tourist walked up to the Coliseum in Rome with a woman and used a key to scratch “Ivan + Haley 23” into one of the 2,000-year-old structure’s walls. Another tourist captured the deed on cellphone video. Chastised profanely by the videographer – who posted the clip to social media – “Ivan” turned and grinned at the camera.

Although the story seems simple on the surface, there’s actually a lot to process. First, it illustrates the callous disregard some people have for not only ancient ruins but also private property. It further reveals the human desire to leave evidence for future generations that we existed. And there’s one more truism attached.

Readers who responded in the comments section of the story after it appeared in The Washington Post roundly criticized “Ivan,” but quickly fell into two camps, both rather predictable.

“With a carved name like Ivan, I am betting on the vandal as being Russian,” one wrote. “No American would do this!” another stated.

In both cases, the commenters fell into the trap of ascribing characteristics based on a person’s name or nationality. It’s a trap that should be easy to avoid. But such generalizations are becoming increasingly common as xenophobia and jingoism spread around the globe when politicians seek to appeal to voters’ baser instincts.

Although Ivan could, indeed, be a male Russian’s name, it’s also popular in Slavic families. There are several Hispanic MLB players named Ivan. My high school wood shop teacher was named Ivan; he was neither Russian nor Hispanic. So there’s no guarantee that given names honor ancestry. My Scots-English mother married a man whose roots were planted in Germany. But my given names are David and Joseph. Mom told me she happened to be reading about King David in her Bible when I was born. One biblical Joseph, of course, had a famous son. But I could’ve been Nebuchadnezzar Abimelech Molter.

Now let’s tackle the notion of American exceptionalism. Americans are no less capable of vandalism than any other nationality, nor does the accident of being born American instill us with respect for history and its monuments. “No American would do this!” Really? The term “graffiti” was coined in America after New York gang members began marking their territory in the 1960s. By the 1980s, subway cars in the Big Apple were so covered with spray-painted graffiti that it was difficult to see through their windows. And how many American school desks, park benches and trees have been defaced by carved hearts and initials?

Police in Rome say they have identified “Ivan” and friend as tourists from England, but the couple had left Italy before they could be apprehended and fined. So the desire to leave one’s mark on history is universal and, apparently, ingrained at birth. There are multiple examples of graffiti scratched into the Coliseum’s exterior and interior walls.

What might be the oldest example of graffiti art – estimated to date to 7300 B.C. – is found in the Cave of the Hands in Santa Cruz, Argentina. There, artists used bone pipes to spray pigments onto cave walls, then placed their hands in the wet paint – almost as children in day care art classes do today. And ancient graffiti found in the Roman city of Pompeii, destroyed in 79 B.C. by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, proves that Ivan’s Coliseum scrawl is far from unique.

“Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera” appears in one of Pompeii’s gladiator barracks.

With a name like Antiochus, I am betting on the vandal being Roman. No American would do this.