A brief survey of acrostic and telestich wordplay in classical poets
Firstly, we need as briefly as possible (and on an inevitably subjective and illustrative rather than exhaustive basis) to examine to what extent Augustan poets (including Ovid) use, or appear to use, acrostics and telestichs in their poetry, and the wider literary heritage and context in which they did so. The briefest survey of Latin poetry, including Augustan poetry, shows beyond question (despite the difficulty of determining intentionality) that such occurrences are far from unusual. The technique goes back to the very beginning of Latin poetry, in Ennius’ MARS (in-line) acrostic moribus antiquis res stat Romana uirisque (Ann. 156 Skutsch = 500 Vahlen). Acrostics and telestichs occur seemingly across the board, at the beginnings and ends of lines, within lines and across lines (and in alternate lines and other patterns).
Oscillating between virtual certainty and complete accident, and whether or not including hints or signa to facilitate recognition, acrostics and telestichs vary between the long and short,Footnote 1 the simple and complex, the obvious and impenetrable, the serious and humorous, the partial and full, the forward and reverse (and the palindromic), the Latin and Greek or both, the literary, the signature and the famous gamma-acrostic (and telestich). There are also, it appears, unfinished, partial and even incorrect or ʻfailed’ acrostics and telestichs; these variants are especially significant for the present article in view of their increased scope for ambiguity, concealment and plausible deniability, notably in Ovid.Footnote 2
Relevantly for the present paper, there are varieties of acrostics and telestichs which do not even have a name, as was noted almost a century ago by Harmon (Reference Harmon1927) in a short paper on the words of Rufinus in the Anthology (line 74) describing a ʻgather ye rosebuds while ye may’ picture complete with a metaphysical skull at the feast where the initial letters of the flowers named and the final word produce ΚΡΑΝΙΟΝ. He notes two others, one in Ausonius (lxxxv), which is signposted, using the initial letters of Greek names (in a Latin epigram) to give a Greek word; and the statement of Photius that the name of Philostorgius could be found in his Ecclesiastical History by means of the first letter of the first word in each of the twelve books.Footnote 3 Discoveries are continuing to accumulate; inevitably, some are more convincing than others, but some are very striking indeed.
Possible intentional acrotelestichs in the Augustan poets
Detailed consideration by author of acrotelestichs in Augustan poetry is now in order, but for reasons of clarity as well as length we shall need to concentrate on line-edge, consecutive-line acrostics and telestichs. We shall give Ovid his own section in view of the need for particular emphasis in his case before proceeding to consider his political acrostics and telestichs.
Virgil
As in Ennius,Virgil has the acrostic MARS (Aen. 7.601–4), which we also find in Ovid.Footnote 4 Others include the celebrated FONS (Ecl. 1.5–8) and VNDIS (Ecl. 9.34–8, perhaps confirmed in a signum, ludus in undis, 9.39).Footnote 5 In Ecl. 4.47–52, CACATA is a surprising and difficult but potentially significant acrostic to which we shall return. In Aen. 1.89–92 we find the telestich ARMA, and a convincing case has been made that, as Virgil announces arma uirumque in the first words of the Aeneid, the telestich ARMA in these lines refers back to those words as the name of the uir is introduced for the first time.Footnote 6 Later in the same book SORS (379–82) may be intended in lines that describe Aeneas following his destiny (data fata secutus, 382).Footnote 7 Book 2 (50–2) has an apparent gamma-acrostic (SIC), perhaps without significance. Book 3 has the acrostic IDA (3–5), with Mount Ida named at the end of the following line (Idae, 6); in 500–5 the acrostic SICEAT (sic eat) may represent the subjunctive wish-fulfilment (maneat, 505) of the prayer. Book 9 may feature a telestich (SEMA, 270–3) for pathetic effect, since in this passage Ascanius is promising all kinds of rewards to Nisus if he succeeds in his heroism – but all Nisus gets is his tomb (σῆμα), as Virgil (like his telestich) tells us in advance (312–3): sed aurae | omnia discerpunt et nubibus inrita donant.
Very significantly for Ovid later in this paper, the most famous type of acrostic in ancient poetry is the signature acrostic, where the literary convention of the sphragis (σφραγίς) or signature of the author is encoded. Most memorable is Brown's sphragis of Publius Vergilius Maro, ma(ro) ue(rgilius) pu(blius) in G. 1.429–33, where lines 429, 431 and 433 begin respectively with maximus, uentus and pura, in a passage which seems clearly to relate to a corresponding astronomical passage in Aratus’ Phaenomena containing his famous thematic LEPTE acrostic (783–7).Footnote 8 In his corresponding passage in the Georgics, just as he seems to reverse Aratus’ meteorological order, Virgil also reverses his signature as well as the Aratean LEPTE acrostic in Latin transliteration as PTE-LE. Further significant insight into Virgil's signature wordplay has been seen by Carter (Reference Carter2002) in Aen. 12.587–8, where Virgil again plays all the right notae, but this time in the right order: in pumice pastor | uestigauit apes fumoque impleuit amaro.Footnote 9
In the Aeneid, finally – and appositely for the present paper – there are three acrostics in book 11 which may be politically allusive (but which are not political barbs such as we shall see Ovid make). In lines 902–6 we find the acrostic DVCES, which may relate to the two protagonists in the Aeneid, Aeneas and Turnus, allegorically for Octavian/Augustus and Antony, and a passage reminiscent of the two warring bee-kings allegory in G. 4.67–102. More significantly, in lines 460–2 and 467–9 we have two CIC acrostics, in the context of the character and oration of Drances, widely considered both in ancient and modern times to be a political allegory for Cicero and his attacks (in his series of speeches, the Philippics, which later cost him his life in the Proscriptions) on Antony (Turnus in the Aeneid).Footnote 10 In the first line of the first of these acrostics (cogite concilium et pacem laudate sedentes, 460), Turnus accuses the orator and non-soldier Drances of forcing debates to make peace by allying with Aeneas, as in reality the orator and non-soldier Cicero pressed for meetings of the senate to destroy Antony and secure ‘peace’ by allying with Octavian/Augustus. Virgil is not, in these two acrostics, making a direct political statement, but he does seem deliberately to confirm his Drances/Cicero parallel which certainly does, in the debate in book 11, open the way for allegorical statements that are critical of the conduct of the civil war and of its protagonists (including the future Augustus). Though certainty in such matters is never possible, it is surely remarkable that two CIC acrostics occur within the space of ten lines and in a context that is so clearly and closely allegorical.Footnote 11
Discussion of the CIC acrostic brings us back to the vexed CACATA acrostic in Ecl. 4.47–52.Footnote 12 The acrostic is potentially significant in terms of length alone but much more so in its placement and context, since it occurs precisely at the point in the poem at which Virgil turns from idyllic golden-age prophecy and propaganda to the real world of simply welcoming the birth of a baby boy. Can it really be that the great Virgil is (deniably) describing all that precedes in this poem as the soiled (cacata) product of sordid party-political propaganda, and would he really use this sort of vulgar Catullan language (even in a poem which clearly bears echoes of Catullus)? Elucidation eludes us, but one thing is clear: if CACATA is an acrostic that intentionally encodes a political criticism of the regime, it is unique in Virgil and cannot be paralleled in any of the Augustan poets except Ovid.
Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius
With regard to the other main poets of the period, Catullus seems largely uninterested in acrotelestichs, although it is possible that the acrostic PANNO (4.1–5) may be intended as an endearing or humorous reference to the boat in question.Footnote 13 AVE (60.3–5) might be intended to signify the last farewell, so to speak, of in nouissimo casu (line 4), and the acrostic NATV in lines 1–4 (note procreauit, line 3) may be intended as contrast. MORS occurs (64.78–81) as Theseus offers himself up to the prospect of death; and AMO (68.131–3) appears in the context of Cupido (line 133).Footnote 14 Tibullus offers nothing at all by way of possibly intentional consecutive-line telestichs, although a desperate search might suggest SITIM (2.5.90–4) in the context of potus (line 89), and SATIS (1.8.66–70) may be intended to signal that ‘enough’ tears have been shed (desistas, 67). A relevant acrostic (and partial gamma-acrostic) occurs in 1.10.51–3, where rusticus begins line 51 and the initial letters of 51–3 read RVS.
Even Propertius seems relatively unmoved by such wordplay. He has the telestich ATER (1.4.17–20) and, although there is no suggestion of such in Cynthia's complexion, ingenuus color occurs in line 13. In 1.30, a poem on love, the opening four lines (although some editors transpose lines at various points) have the telestich EROS (and Amor is the final word of line 2). His best effort – again in the opening lines (3.10) – may be the acrostic MANE in a poem specifically about a morning visit and with mane in the opening line. The telestich SERMO (4.6.8–12) might conceivably refer to ora and referemus (line 11) and carmina and canitur (lines 13–14), and VETO (4.8.5–8) might be intended to relate to caue (line 6). Finally, though a common accidental telestich, ARA (4.9.54–6) may be intentional and relevant in a poem specifically marking the founding of the Ara Maxima (maxima … ara, 67).Footnote 15
Horace
Significantly, Horace is much more interested in acrotelestichs, particularly telestichs. His earliest apparently significant telestich, noticed only very recently, may be one of his most impressive, SATIS (Sat. 1.4.14–18), a telestich of direct literary and thematic consequence in its context (like Horace's gamma-telestich MVS in the Ars poetica referred to above).Footnote 16 Horace also has MESSI (Sat. 2.2.129–3) after Ceres has been prayed to with specific reference to the growing crops (ac uenerata Ceres, ita culmo surgeret alto, 124). Sat. 2.3, on hoarding money, has ASSI (106–9), perhaps intended but hardly memorable. In Epist. 2.1 Horace has SOCO (173–6), which may be a ʻfailed’ telestich for soccus, the low slipper worn by comic actors, in humorous reference to the failed playwright Dossennus ridiculed in its first line.Footnote 17 In the Ars poetica we find DITI (169–22), perhaps intended as occurring in the context of the rich old miser who refuses to spend his money (inuentis miser abstinet ac timet uti, 170).
The Epodes present no meaningful telestichs. In the Odes Horace has ARAM (1.3.2–5), perhaps relevant at the outset of a propemptikon offering a prayer (precor, line 7) to the gods, although in the same ode (16–20) the more noticeable telestich AMATA appears to have no significance. Fortuitous, too, in the Odes seem to be MASSA (1.5.5–9), MOS (1.12.42–4 and 1.37.5–7), MVS (1.18.10–12 and at the beginning of poem 1.35) and SVS (1.22.1–3, although again at the beginning of a poem which also mentions other animals). More apparently meaningless MOS telestichs occur in the Odes (2.2.22–4, this time at the end of the poem, but still without significance, and 2.14.16–18). In 2.3.13–16 the telestich SEMA (σῆμα, ‘tomb’) may be intended in a poem about inevitable death and tombs (res et aetas et sororum | fila trium … atra, heres, Orci, urna). In book 3 MVS seems insignificant (6.43–45), as well as MESSI, but ORAS (4.26–9) may intentionally provide the ʻshores’ which clearly are there (shores are at the edge by definition), but never quite articulated (Sicula Palinurus unda, 28), as they are in harenas | litoris (31–2). In book 4 MOS (4.11.1–3) may be another accidental telestich except that the ode happens to celebrate Horace's birthday. As regards acrostics, it is possible that at the beginning of Sat. 1.6, where Horace praises Maecenas for not turning his nose up at those of inferior birth, the acrostic NOVI (lines 3–6) may be deliberate as the equivalent (noui homines) of ignotos at the beginning of line 6. Od. 1.18.11–15 has the gamma-acrostic DISCE, which is (like the poem) difficult to interpret but may have hidden depths.Footnote 18
Acrotelestich wordplay in Ovid
Now let us turn to Ovid, the richest source of such wordplay among all these poets (even discounting for the moment his political acrotelestichs, which we shall discuss in detail in the final section of this article). From his earliest work Ovid shows signs of enjoying this wordplay: in Her. 2. 136–9 he gives us the telestich SEMA (σῆμα, ‘tomb’), precisely where Phyllis prays to be washed up ‘untombed’ (intumulata, 136), Ovid thus leaving his heroine unburied but in a telestich tomb. Consider, too, TER in Tr. 5.10.1–6, where ter appears to occur twice not thrice, in the first and second lines, but the third is actually to be found in the last word of the first line, Hister, and then, although the wordplay seems finished, Ovid is not and inserts a fourth in the last word of line 6, iter – and then a fifth in the telestich TER in lines 4–6.Footnote 19 On the other hand, telestichs certainly occur in Ovid randomly and without significance: ROSA (Fast. 2.514–17), MVTA (Met. 4.231–4), ENSE (Met. 4.658–61), SITIS (Fast. 3.804–8, Pont. 1.2.51–5 and 4.6.26–30), and indeed SEMA later in the Heroides (6.106–9).Footnote 20
In the Amores SORTI (1.8.29–33) may be deliberate, Ovid speaking here of fortune changing and improving. In Ars amatoria (1.604–8) TIMET is interesting in the context of Fortune and Venus helping the bold (audentem, 608); and in Ars (2.203–6) the telestich SORS is clearly relevant to the context of dice-playing and the luck of the draw. SITIS in Met. 8.823–7 may be deliberate wordplay, occurring at the point at which the insatiable lust for food (and presumably drink) begins. The case of MVTA referred to above looked accidental, but MVTA in Fast. 2.843–6, although dealing with Lucretia's sightless eyes, ends lines where she is also notably silent and can only move her eyes and hair to show assent. Similarly in MVTA (Met. 2.446–9) the nymph blushes and falls silent (silet, 450); and MVTA in Met. 3.16–19 may refer to the heifer and in any case Cadmus follows her in silence (taciturnus, 18). In Tr. 1.3.61–4 MARS may be random, but the poem describes Ovid's departure from Rome for exile and Rome is specifically mentioned in the lines of the telestich (Roma reliquenda est, 62). Tr. 1.6 has the telestich TROS in lines about Hector and his wife (18–21).
ARS wordplay is, as might be expected, notable in Ovid. Tr. 1.2 has the telestich ARS (45–7) in a context which ostensibly suggests that it is a storm at sea (not assassination after exile resulting from the Ars) which is threatening Ovid's life, and the wordplay is confirmed shortly after in the telestich ARTI in the famous lines about his error (1.2.98–101). ARTIS occurs in Tr. 2.313–17 at the very point at which Ovid is discussing his Ars (in nostra nimia est lasciuia Musa) and the peccatum and culpa that led to his exile. In the Ars itself the telestich AMOR (3.507–10) seems particularly significant, since it is also a gamma-telestich, the last word of the last line being amor.Footnote 21 SOROS (σόρος, ‘coffin’) occurs at Tr. 3.3.79–83, where Ovid, who has not been feeling at all well and is unsure of his recovery, talks about his death and funeral rites (extincto feralia munera … dato, 81–2; parua … in urna, 65).Footnote 22 Similarly we have SOMA (σῶμα, ‘body’) in Met. 15.408–11, where Ovid describes the hyena's change of body (alternare uices, 409) from female to male, and then concludes the passage with a reference to ʻall the things translated into new forms’ (omnia uerbis | in species translata nouas, 419–20), a clear reference, as the Metamorphoses begins to approach its end, to the theme of changing bodies in the epic's opening lines, in noua fert animus mutatas dicere formas | corpora (1–2).
In the Ibis we find MORS (432–6), perhaps random as elsewhere, but the context is the carving up and serving up of Ovid's unnamed enemy for dinner; similarly, we have OSSA (587–90), which may seem fortuitous but occurs (admittedly, like much of the Ibis) in the context of praying for his enemy's death; and at the conclusion of Pont. 4.3, a poem resembling the Ibis as Ovid rails at a faithless friend, he ends with the telestich IRA (56–8). Consider, too, the telestich TVMET in Met. 9.259–63, where, after Jove's final words, the ʻswelling’ nature of Juno's anger is marked by Ovid with rapid repetition and accumulation of anger (260–1): duro tamen ultima uultu | dicta tulisse Iouis, seque indoluisse notatam.
Ovid himself is a fascinating exponent of signature acrotelestichs. After his lengthy introduction to the Metamorphoses, he begins his stories of metamorphosis with the tale of Apollo's transformation of Daphne, the daughter of the river-god Peneus, into the laurel tree in nine introductory lines which include one or possibly two telestichs, NASO (452–5) and NASO[S]SIM (452–9).Footnote 23 Can this really be an accident of composition which Ovid wrote but never noticed, this apparent and extended telestich wordplay in which he names himself, and promises to be himself, at the very beginning of the first metamorphosis of his new and indeed unique genre, an epic of episodes of metamorphosis which would make his name and fame immortal, as he claims in his sphragis in the final lines (871–9) of the final book?Footnote 24
Further, in view of the fact that Ovid sometimes does provide a sphragis (of some kind) in the expected places, it would seem reasonable to seek a signature at the beginning of the Metamorphoses. Alas, there is none. But there is a possible ʻfailed’ telestich, NESO (Met.1.10–13), followed directly by a possible themed signature telestich, ERATO (14–18).Footnote 25 In the conventional place, then, Ovid offers only a ‘failed’ signature for a ‘failed’ epic to the unsuspecting readers of traditional epic poetry expecting a polished literary sphragis, and delays his proper signature until the point at which his new mock-epic genre of metamorphosis properly begins (1.452), now offering a larger telestich statement, NASO SIM, to signal an intention not only by name but also by genre that he is creating something new in the Metamorphoses: Ovid the love-poet (NESO ERATO) is no more, and a new Ovid has taken up a new place with a new genre (NASO SIM), but still on his own terms and in a place of his own choosing.
In Met. 4.55–166 Ovid tells the famous story of Pyramus and Thisbe, whose key element is of course a metamorphosis, as the blood of the ill-fated lovers changes the colour of the mulberries (mora). As I noted in my earlier article (p. 000 n. 7), the telestic MORA (133–6) is surely unmistakable and deliberate. In Trist. 5.2 Ovid is writing to his wife and the first six lines form the telestich SVM TVI, which may signify (roughly, since acrotelestichs can be free of grammatical or other accuracy) ʻI am yours’ or ʻI am in your hands', Ovid telling his wife what he confirms in line 34, esset, quae debet, si tibi cura mei.Footnote 26
Turning to acrostics, the fascinating DEVS at the outset of the Metamorphoses (1.29–31) raises the question of whether Ovid is thumbing his nose at Augustus by putting in the place of a dedicatee a nameless god who is emphatically not Augustus but where Augustus would expect to be.Footnote 27 After the Horatian DISCE example earlier, we may add another DISCE acrostic, this time in Ovid's political allegory (Met. 1.252–6) in which Augustus and the Palatine repeatedly resemble Jove and the Council of the Gods in the story of the destruction of wicked humanity in the Flood. By his own admission Jove teaches mankind a lesson in a recognisably Roman educational process confirmed by the description of the two remaining mortals, Deucalion and Pyrrha, as ʻexamples’ for mankind (hominumque exempla manemus, 365) – a direct Augustan allegory, since Jove lecturing the Council of the Gods has a known historical parallel in Augustus, who liked to read out lengthy moral and heroic exempla in the senate.
In Met. 5.366–70 ICTV may be intended, as Cupid takes his arrows and shoots. PENES (11.595–9) seems to relate to the description of Sleep ‘at home’ (domus et penetralia Somni, 593), and in 14.584–8 TACTA occurs as Venus embraces Jove. And as the epically long Metamorphoses approaches its apparent end, an unfinished INCIP (15.871-5) has been seen as Ovid's tendency to confuse beginnings and endings.Footnote 28
In the Fasti, as Ovid pays homage to the lofty minds (sublimia pectora, 1.301) that have preceded him in his work (with more than a hint of Virgil: felices animae, quibus haec cognoscere primis, 297), his acrostic CANON (299–303) seems to confirm his acknowledgement of his Greek predecessors (κανών), perhaps also with a nod to the notion of the chief epochs or eras in Chronology, the κανόνες χρονικοί. Ovid has an (almost) gamma-telestich in Pont. 3.3, where TORO occurs in lines 7–10 and toro appears at the end of line 8. Pont. 2.9.57–60 has the acrostic ACTA, as Ovid stresses the action side of King Cotys before turning to marcessant per inertis otia somnos (61). Pont. 4.3.29–33 has the telestich TORTA in lines where the ‘twists’ and turns of fate are emphasised (31–4). In Pont. 4.13.1–3 Ovid has the telestich SEX, as if to date his letter at its beginning, confirming the date later in the poem (39–40).
Ovid's political acrotelestichs
The Brer Rabbit tales of North American slaves are among the best-known examples of an oral tradition of trickster tales, many variants of which have been collected … [which] represent, I believe, … the muffled, oblique version of [the ‘hidden transcript’ or ‘backstage discourse consisting of what cannot be spoken in the face of power'] … It may seem that the heavy disguise this reply wears must all but eliminate the pleasure it gives. While it is surely less satisfying than an open declaration of the hidden transcript it neverthess achieves something the backstage can never match. It carves out a public, if provisional, space for the autonomous cultural expression of dissent. If it is disguised, it is at least not hidden; it is spoken to power. This is no small achievement of voice under domination.
(J. C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Reference Scott1990) 163–6)If acrotelestich wordplay was an intentional, recognised and valued device in poets of the Augustan period, albeit to varying degrees, and if Ovid was its greatest exponent, the indefatigable inventor of new and unique genres would add another, the political acrotelestich, as we can now observe Ovid clustering his barbs around some half-dozen key Augustan targets.Footnote 29
Augustan ‘pietas'
In his Ars amatoria – the official cause of his exile – Ovid ends his list of locations at which young men can meet girls with a specific reference to Augustus’ famous staging of the battle of Salamis, and ends the paragraph with a humorous quip about how many men have been twisted by a foreign love (1.176): eheu, quam multos aduena torsit amor. How many, indeed – especially after the mention of ‘Caesar’ and the fact that Ovid proceeds directly to overdone panegyric (177–218) – would fail to see this as a reference to the scandalous relationship between Augustus’ ‘father’ Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, the classic foreign femme fatale?Footnote 30 As it happens, Ovid's panegyric turns into just another opportunity for young men to pick up girls, foreign or not (219–28), but the key point is that the lines which bridge these episodes – which many commentators see as somewhat artificially cobbled together – produce the telestich RISI (176–9).Footnote 31 Ovid must have his little laugh, deniably.
Octavian as the divine Augustus
At the beginning of the Metamorphoses, Augustus would expect to be the deified dedicatee in full panoply, but he is is not. Instead, the gods are invoked in just two letters (di, 1.2). As we saw earlier, there is a god to resolve the chaos, but it is not Augustus but some anonymous god (deus or natura, 1.21), and the irritation is exacerbated by Ovid's acrostic DEVS (1.29–32). But things take a much darker turn in Fast. 2.15–18 (arguably the original dedication of the poem), where Ovid inserts the acrostic ANER (ἀνήρ), an ordinary ‘man’, where ‘divine Augustus’ ought to be.Footnote 32 If this was one of the revisions to the Fasti which Ovid made in his last years, we see the same pinprick in the epistulae of his last years (Pont. 2.8 and 9), two successive poems in which the last two lines of the former and the first of the latter provide the acrostic VIR, where again Augustus is a mere mortal (uir) although the apparent basis of 2.8 is Ovid's receipt of likenesses (probably to be placed on an altar) of the gods (diui, 2.8.2) Augustus, Tiberius and Livia, and where the last line and key word of the poem (2.8.76, within the acrostic) describe Augustus as a god, sit minor ira dei. Furthermore, rather unusually, in this poem Augustus is repetitively described as uir, in 2.8.23 and 45 (as husband), despite references to his maiestas (30) and divine power (numina, 37–8). The pinprick is more than that: it is an insult that goes to the heart of the falsehood of Augustan propaganda. The acrostic needs, therefore, to be absolutely deniable, and in fact is doubly so (or triply, with both utcumque and sine ordine), since it is split between two poems and Ovid makes it clear – conspicuously so at the end of book 3 (the three books were published as a unit) – that these epistulae were subsequently collected together randomly and, quite specifically, ‘without order’ (3.9.53): postmodo collectas utcumque sine ordine iunxi.Footnote 33
The divine and ‘unbroken’ line of the Augustan dynasty
Ovid debunks the Augustan foundation myth in two ways, denying not only the divinity of the line from which the regime claimed descent but also its supposedly unbroken lineage. Fasti 4 (a particularly significant book for Ovidian political activity) pours (deniable) scorn on the supposed seamlessness of the Venus/Trojan/Latin components of the Augustan propaganda myth in an extended episode that ends with Ovid overtly bewailing his exile (19–84). Ovid is elsewhere (as we have just seen) keen to remind his readers, in studied and disingenuous innocence, that one of the most basic and recent flaws of this bogus Augustan construct is that Augustus was not Julius Caesar's son, and he does so here at the outset (et fit adoptiua nobilitate tuus, 22). The fraudulent sophistry of the family tree is repeatedly exposed in phrases such as gradibus multis (27), uoluit (28), the remarkable nesciret … scilicet (31–2), and the memorable line uenimus ad felix aliquando nomen Iuli (39), begging all sorts of questions: how on earth and when did we arrive (uenimus … aliquando reinforcing uenit adusque, 30) at this point, what a happy coincidence (felix, 39), and how did the name Iulus suddenly appear to make the requisite Trojan connection (unde domus Teucros Iulia tangit auos, 40)?
Ovid continues in similar vein. Mocking its simplistic convenience (quod siluis fuit ortus in altis, 41), he makes the Silvius connection, and indeed (relevant or otherwise) a SILVA acrostic occurs later (236–40) in the stories of Cybele and her eventual transfer to Rome and of Claudia Quinta, which ends with Augustus: Augustus nunc est, ante Metellus erat (348). But a much more significant acrostic may be DIVVM (48–52), Ovid thereby inserting a reference to a divinity which, by his account, is otherwise completely and conspicuously absent at this point from the Augustan stemma – and we may wonder whether the overlapping incomplete telestich STEM (46–9) is a coincidence or deliberate confirmation of that incomplete and broken dynastic line. Further, Ovid's extended passage here (up to line 60) is interrupted by an equally extensive passage on Venus and the power of sex, returning to the Julian line via Venus’ connection with Troy in line 119 and concluding in a particularly sardonic couplet (123–4):
Venus, mother of Aeneas by Anchises, provides Augustus with his eternal divine line, through Troy, which Ovid describes as ‘your Troy, Roman’ (pro Troia, Romane, tua, 119), but the sarcasm is evident and of a piece with the earlier passage: scilicet occurs again, and olim recalls adusque and aliquando.Footnote 34
Ovid reprises this theme in Trist. 3.1 in an even more elaborate piece of wordplay. In this introductory poem, Ovid's new book is guided through Rome to the house of Augustus (27–58). It is clear that there is divinity and eternity for the Augustan line: rectaque digna deo (34), ‘Iouis haec’ dixi ‘domus est?' (35), ‘non fallimur’ inquam | ‘et magni uerum est hanc Iouis esse domum' (37–8), Caesar … maxime diue (78), perpetuos meruit domus ista triumphos (41), semper (45), aeternum … decus (46). But in the midst of all this eternal divinity is a double telestich, MOS STAT (38–44): all this stands by human custom. As elsewhere, when Ovid says non fallimur (‘we are/I am not deceived’), he really is not deceived – about Augustan political reality.Footnote 35
Augustan ‘justice'
Ovid constantly complains about the injustice of his fate, and it is relevant here to note three IVS acrotelestichs which share a similar context.Footnote 36 First, the passage in Pont. 1.2.90–2 clearly articulates Ovid's view that the place of his exile is unjust, and is astonishingly frank about his fear of death at the hands of Rome.Footnote 37 In the same context we find another IVS, this time an acrostic significantly placed at the climax of Trist. 1.4.26–8 and set in the context of the autocrat's lack of mercy (parcit … .parcite, 25) and ira (infestumque … Iouem, 26). Again, in Pont. 4.6.46–9, Ovid hides any direct accusation of Augustan injustice in an acrostic IVS, as he begins to conclude a poem addressed to two friends, Paullus Fabius Maximus and Brutus, who had the forensic skills to plead his case to Augustus. It is a poem which skirts political notoriety and possible political assassination, which Ovid feared in his own case – and which certainly did occur in the case of Agrippa Postumus.Footnote 38 All three cases are encoded in the context of tyrannical cruelty, injustice and the threat of death.Footnote 39 The final line of Trist. 1.4 and its IVS acrostic mark Ovid's perhaps most pathetic utterance on the subject – in poetic and (like his other political acrotelestichs) deniable terms – that he is already a dead man: si modo, qui periit, non periisse potest.Footnote 40
Augustan murder, assassination and terror
Augustan terror and the threat of death and assassination are of course a very personal matter for Ovid, and a powerful example occurs in Trist. 1.5, as Ovid bewails his exile, the fact that so many of his friends deserted him in his hour of need, and the need for safe shores from his few remaining friends in his figuratively shipwrecked situation: o pauci … date naufragio litora tuta meo (35–6). His plea to them is that they should remain loyal and help him and not be too fearful of Augustus, who ‘has often praised loyalty, even among his enemies in arms', and so forth (37–42). But amid that special pleading in these apparently reassuring lines, his fear is encoded in the acrostic SICA (39–42), the assassin's dagger. And the line following the acrostic is notably opaque: inuigiles igitur nostris pro casibus, oro – usually translated as ‘be watchful over my fortunes, I beg’ or such like, it may also mean ‘be vigilant for the sake of (preventing) my assassination', especially as the next line refers to the anger of Augustus (numinis ira).
Similarly, a letter to his wife, Trist. 3.3, where Ovid is envisaging his death in exile, has the acrostic ENSI (60–3), a word which may (though not always) carry a specifically Roman connotation. Ovid has, he writes, been very ill, and that is the natural and plaintext assumption behind his death here, but it is clear elsewhere that he fears the sword that hangs over his head from Rome. Significantly, Ovid fears the manner of his death more than death itself: nec letum timeo; genus est miserabile leti (Trist. 1.2.51). He will not tell of the ‘ambushes and mortal dangers’ that threaten him, except to say that they are ‘indeed true, but graver than belief in truth’ (utque neque insidias capitisque pericula narrem, | uera quidem, ueri sed grauiora fide, Trist. 4.1.65–6). He knows that death will come to end his exile (mors faciet certe, ne sim, cum uenerit, exul, Pont. 1.1.65), but what he fears most is where death will come from, and the lines that follow mors (65) make that point in the acrostic VNDE (66–9).
The secret of Ovid's death died with him, but his dissent did not. Albeit constrained, concealed and confined to the edge, that dissent nevertheless entered the public domain and the historical record, its provisional and encrypted expression doubtless affording its author some measure of satisfaction and achievement in the face of a ruthless and unrelenting Augustan domination.
