"I went to Rome and all I got you was this pen." Roger Tomlin, a classicist and epigrapher at the University of Oxford, translated the full inscription as follows: "I have come from the City. I bring ...

The pen reads: “I have come from the City [Rome]. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able (to give) as generously ...

The tradition of buying cheap, joke souvenirs for your loved ones while ... "I went to Rome and all I got you was this pen." Roger Tomlin, a classicist and epigrapher at the University of Oxford ...