You are right, of course, we were taught only literary written Latin. The vulgar is gone. Poorly expressed, my point was that if some scribbles did turn up, we would have a hell of a time trying to put meaning to them. We have odes by well-known Roman writers, some based on folk tales, but no language, poetry or tales directly from the common people of the time. We have only a word or two of the slang of the day and no knowledge of the allusions that were common.