Portrait of Terentius Neo

The Portrait of Terentius Neo is a Roman fresco, created circa 50 AD,[1] depicting a couple holding objects important to literacy.

It is highly unusual for individualized painted portraits to survive from the Roman era, but holding objects to do with literacy is common in portraits, which are mostly more idealized, and may be intended to represent authors, or real people depicted as dead authors.

[citation needed] According to the museum, "The portrait represents a typical provincial bourgeois, showing off like a refined aristocrat, being portrayed with the toga and a roll of papyrus".

The man wears a toga, the mark of a Roman citizen, and holds a rotulus, suggesting he is also involved in local public and/or cultural events.

The woman is in the foreground and holds a stylus and wax tablet, emphasizing that she is of equal status, educated, and literate.