A ‘Greek’ Acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430-4)

Castelletti, Cristiano

doi:10.1163/156852511x548171

Mnemosyne

2012

DOI: 10.1163/156852511x548171

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A ‘Greek’ Acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430-4)

Cristiano Castelletti

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Cited by 3 publications

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A Hidden Anagram in Valerius Flaccus?

Houghton

2017

The Class. Q.

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In Virgil's third eclogue, the goatherd Menalcas responds to his challenger Damoetas by offering as his wager in their contest of song a pair of embossed cups, caelatum diuini opus Alcimedontis (Ecl. 3.37), decorated with a pattern of vine and ivy. In the middle of this design, he says, are two figures. One is the astronomer Conon, and the other—at this point Menalcas, afflicted with a sudden loss of memory, professes to have forgotten the name of the second figure, and breaks off into a question (Ecl. 3.40-2): quis fuit alter, | descripsit radio totum qui gentibus orbem, | tempora quae messor, quae curuus arator haberet? Various candidates for the identity of this second astronomer have been suggested, one of the most favoured being Eudoxus of Cnidus, whose Phaenomena had been versified by the Hellenistic poet Aratus. In 1930 it was proposed by Léon Herrmann that Menalcas in fact answers his own question in his reference to curuUS ARATor at Ecl. 3.42: the solution to Virgil's riddle is already written into the question, in the form of the anagram of Aratus concealed within these two words. Strictly speaking, Hermann notes only that ‘Arator au v. 42 évoque le nom d’Aratos’; he and later exponents of the theory tend to ignore the preceding ‘-us’—but there seems no reason to exclude it if an allusion to the Greek poet is to be seen in the two following syllables.

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A Hidden Anagram in Valerius Flaccus?

Houghton

2017

The Class. Q.

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Looking Edgeways. Pursuing Acrostics in Ovid and Virgil

Robinson

2019

The Class. Q.

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What follows is an experiment in reading practice. I propose that we read some key passages of the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses in the active pursuit of acrostics and telestics, just as we have been accustomed to read them in the active pursuit of allusions and intertexts; and that we do so with the same willingness to make sense of what we find. The measure of success of this reading practice will be the extent to which our understanding of these familiar and well-studied texts can be usefully enriched by our interpretation of our discoveries (or rediscoveries). These will include an undiscovered authorial signature NASO in the ‘second proem’ of the Metamorphoses; an unnoticed self-referential response to Horace with NITIDO at the centre of Ovid's epic and a similarly self-referential AVSVM at the centre of Virgil's epic; in the Aeneid we will also find glances to Aratus with LEPTE and an Aratean anagram on Aeneas’ shield; and two new acrostics connecting Dido, Ajax and Lavinia.

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Virgilian Echoes in theAenigmata Symposii: Two UnnoticedTechnopaignia

Castelletti

Siegenthaler

2016

Philologus

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This paper aims to provide a new interpretation of the first riddles of the Aenigmata ascribed to Symposius, discussing two technopaignia that seem to have gone unnoticed by scholars. The first one is the boustrophedon acrostic TAVROD ("by the ox" or "from the ox"), embedded in the opening riddle of the collection (Graphium/Stilus). The second acrostic is in the third riddle (Anulus cum gemma): the boustrophedon sequence spells the word CIRIUS (or CISIUS), which could be interpreted as the author's signature (his name would be Caerius or Caesius), or as the adjective cereus, "of wax", or as a transliteration of the Greek κύριος "Lord". The sources of inspiration for these features are the boustrophedon acrostics ASTILOMV (= A STILO M[aronis] V[ergili]), and MOS QIS EI (= mos quis ei?) composed by Virgil at the very beginning of the Aeneid (the poet's sphragis). Virgil (whose source of inspiration is Aratus) used the boustrophedon to allude to the origins of writing, and to archaic Rome. The author of the Aenigmata, revealing his mastery of the techniques of acrostic composition, provides a late antique reading of his sources, acknowledging the genuine character of the Virgilian sphragis.

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A ‘Greek’ Acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430-4)

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

A Hidden Anagram in Valerius Flaccus?

A Hidden Anagram in Valerius Flaccus?

Looking Edgeways. Pursuing Acrostics in Ovid and Virgil

Virgilian Echoes in theAenigmata Symposii: Two UnnoticedTechnopaignia

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