² Acrostics and telestics are words formed by the first and last letters of a line respectively. For recent surveys of classical acrostics and acrostic scholarship, see Damschen, G., ‘Das lateinische Akrostichon’, Philologus 148 (2004), 88–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luz, C., Technopaignia. Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung (Leiden and Boston, 2010), 1–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar (mainly on Greek acrostics); Katz, J.T., ‘The muse at play: an introduction’, in Kwapisz, J., Petrain, D. and Szymański, M. (edd.), The Muse at Play. Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (Berlin, 2013), 1–30Google Scholar, with updates in Katz, J.T., ‘Another Virgilian signature in the Georgics?’, in Mitsis, P. and Ziogas, I. (edd.), Wordplay and Powerplay in Latin Poetry (Berlin, 2016), 69–85Google Scholar; for some further bibliographical updates, see the Appendix to this article. Older but still useful are Courtney, E., ‘Greek and Latin acrostichs’, Philologus 134 (1990), 3–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Vogt, E., ‘Das Akrostichon in der griechischen Literatur’, A&A 13 (1967), 80–95Google Scholar. Hilberg, I., ‘Ist die Ilias Latina von einem Italicus verfasst oder einem Italicus gewidmet?’, WSt 21 (1899), 264–305Google Scholar, in which the author lists thousands of acrostics in Latin hexameters that he has identified (but rejected as ‘accidental’), is still of some interest; he added a two-page update in the same journal the following year (at 317–18). As for Simon, J., Akrosticha bei den Augusteischen Dichtern (Cologne, 1899)Google Scholar, while it contains some moments of interest, the claim by Hilberg (this note), 270 that it is a work ‘not of philological but rather pathological interest’ is not entirely without foundation.

³ See M. Robinson, ‘Arms and a mouse. Thinking about acrostics in Virgil and Ovid’, MD (forthcoming).

⁴ For the latter, cf. e.g. Barchiesi, A., ‘Narrative technique and narratology in the Metamorphoses’, in Hardie, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge, 2002), 180–99, at 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barchiesi, A., ‘Endgames: Ovid's Metamorphoses 15 and Fasti 6’, in Roberts, D.H., Dunn, F.M. and Fowler, D.P. (edd.), Classical Closure. Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton, 1997), 181–208Google Scholar.

⁵ Barchiesi (n. 4 [1997]), 184.

⁶ Cf. e.g. Hardie, P. (ed.), Ovidio: Metamorfosi, Volume VI: Libri XIII–XV (Milan, 2015)Google Scholar, ad loc.

⁷ Miller, F.J. (rev. Goold, G.P.), Ovid. Metamorphoses, Books IX–XV (Cambridge, MA, 1984)Google Scholar, from whom all subsequent translations from the Metamorphoses are taken.

⁸ Feeney, D., ‘Mea tempora: patterning of time in the Metamorphoses’, in Hardie, P., Barchiesi, A. and Hinds, S. (edd.), Ovidian Transformations: Essays on the Metamorphoses and its Reception (Cambridge, 1999), 13–30, at 30Google Scholar.

⁹ Barchiesi (n. 4  [1997]), 195. For the possibility that this incomplete INCIP- acrostic looks to an incomplete DESIN- acrostic in Catullus 36 (in which Catullus consigns the epic Annales of Volusius to the flames), see below.

¹⁰ Simon (n. 2), 227 notes a NESO telestic at 1.10–13, emending line 11 to produce NASO; an ERATO telestic at 1.14–18; and a DEVS acrostic at 29–32, on which see also Damschen (n. 2), 97 n. 30. In Robinson (n. 3) I argue for the significance of a MVS acrostic at 1.14–16 (coinciding with the ERATO telestic at 1.14–18) as a glance to the ridiculus mus of the Ars Poetica (see below). I owe the Simon reference to Talitha Kearey.

¹¹ For the introduction of amor as a ‘new beginning’ in the Met., cf. e.g. Fantham, E., Ovid's Metamorphoses (Oxford, 2004), 122Google Scholar; the same phrase in Volk, K., Ovid (Malden, MA, 2010), 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Miller, J.F., ‘Primus amor Phoebi’, CW 102 (2009), 168–72, at 168Google Scholar. Cf. also Barchiesi, A. and Koch, L. (edd.), Ovidio: Metamorfosi, Volume I. Libri I–II (Milan, 2005)Google Scholar, on Met. 1.452.

¹³ Miller (n. 12), 168. Cf. also Nicoll, W.S.M., ‘Cupid, Apollo, and Daphne (Ovid, Met. 1.452 ff.)’, CQ 30 (1980), 174–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Apollo also suggests that Cupid should just concern himself with Amores at 1.461: on which, see Barchiesi in Barchiesi and Koch (n. 12), ad loc.

¹⁵ Cf. traces of the acrostic signature of the fourth-century b.c. tragic poet Chairemon in TrGF 1.71 F14b = P.Hibeh II.224, on which see Luz (n. 2), 7–14; for those of Nicander at Theriaca 345–53 and again (almost) at Alexipharmaca at 266–74, see Lobel, E., ‘Nicander's signature’, CQ 22 (1928), 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luz (n. 2), 16–22; and Overduin, F., Nicander of Colophon's Theriaca: A Literary Commentary (Leiden, 2015), on 345–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the possible authorial signature in the Ilias Latina, which was the inspiration for Hilberg's famous list (n. 2 [1899]), see Kilpatrick, R.S., ‘The “Ilias Latina” acrostic: a milder remedy’, Latomus 51 (1992), 857–9Google Scholar; Scaffai, M., Baebii Italici Ilias Latina (Bologna, 1997 ²)Google Scholar;  and Schubert, C., ‘Ein Zeugnis aus Neros Dichterkreis? Zu den Kryptogrammen der Ilias Latina’, WJA 23 (1999), 137–41Google Scholar. There are also two geographical poets whose works contain acrostic signatures, both called Dionysius: one thought to belong to the first century b.c. (Dionysius, son of Calliphon), for whom see Luz (n. 2), 22–5; the second belonging to the second century a.d. (Dionysius Periegetes), for whom see Luz (n. 2), 52–8 and Lightfoot, J., Dionysius Periegetes. Description of the Known World (Oxford, 2014), on 112–34Google Scholar.

¹⁶ According to Cicero (Div. 2.111–12), Ennius also included an acrostic signature in one of his works; Suetonius (Gram. et rhet. 6) claims that Aurelius Opilius (early first century b.c.) signed his name in an acrostic in his Pinax; for further examples, see Damschen (n. 2), 92 n. 9.

¹⁷ These signatures are also often found at key structural moments in a text: cf. e.g. ἄρρητον as a signature for Aratus at Phaen. 2, on which see Levitan, W., ‘Plexed artistry: Aratean acrostics’, Glyph 5 (1979), 55–68, at 68 n. 18Google Scholar and more recently Katz, J.T., ‘Virgil translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1–2 and Georgics 1.1–2’, MD 60 (2008), 105–23Google Scholar, who also sees a translingual play on Aratus’ name at the beginning of the Georgics; a Propertian signature in line 2 of the sphragis poem that closes the first book (1.22) quaeris pro nostra semper amicitia, on which see Dettmer, H., ‘A poetic signature in Propertius 1.22.2?’, LCM 13 (1988), 55–6Google Scholar. For some other suggestions of Virgilian onomastic passages, see n. 41.

¹⁸ On this passage, see Brown, E., Numeri Virgiliani. Studies in Eclogues and Georgics (Brussels, 1963), 102–5Google Scholar; Feeney, D. and Nelis, D., ‘Two Virgilian acrostics: certissima signa?’, CQ 55 (2005), 644–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Katz (n. 2 [2016]); and Robinson (n. 3), n. 51. Danielewicz, J., ‘Virgil's certissima signa reinterpreted: the Aratean lepte-acrostic in Georgics 1’, Eos 100 (2013), 287–95Google Scholar has suggested that we catch a glimpse of LEPTE in the PTE of 432–5, which we can complete with an ‘L’ and an ‘E’ from elsewhere. More convincing perhaps is his suggestion of a reverse acrostic at 439–43, giving (reading upwards) SCIES, with the final letter of the acrostic in 439 being the first letter of SIGNA, i.e. scies signa.

¹⁹ The Aratus passage encourages us ‘to look between (or on each side of) the moon's horns’ (778), and the ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic is enclosed between mentions of these horns. Similarly, in the Georgics passage, the acrostic is to be found if we look ‘between the horns’ (the word cornu ‘horn’ ends line 428, immediately before the first syllable; and the word cornibus is the penultimate word in line 433, the final line of the ‘acrostic’).

²⁰ Cf. e.g. Conte, G.B., ‘Proems in the middle’, in Dunn, F.M. and Cole, T. (edd.), Beginnings in Classical Literature (Cambridge, 1992), 147–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kyriakides, S. and De Martino, F. (edd.), Middles in Latin Poetry (Bari, 2004)Google Scholar.

²¹ Cf. e.g. Pavlock, B., The Image of the Poet in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Madison, Wisconsin, 2009), 61–88Google Scholar; Boyd, B.W., ‘Two rivers and the reader in Ovid, “Metamorphoses” 8’, TAPhA 136 (2006), 171–206Google Scholar.

²² Met. 8.159–68.

²³ Met. 8.614–15 ‘ficta refers nimiumque putas, Acheloe, potentes | esse deos’ dixit ‘si dant adimuntque figuras.’ | obstipuere omnes nec talia dicta probarunt … (‘“These are but fairy-tales you tell, Achelous,” he said, “and you concede too much power to the gods, if they give and take away the forms of things.” All the rest were shocked and disapproved such words …’).

²⁴ The words denote an elegant style, though occasionally (and entirely appropriately for Ovid) with the pejorative sense of flashiness. Cf. e.g. for nitor, OLD s.v. 4b: Cic. Att. 13.19.5 = 326 SB; Quint. Inst. 8.3.3; for nitens, cf. OLD s.v. 6: Hor. Ars P. 351 uerum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis | offendar maculis (‘but when the beauties in a poem are more in number, I shall not take offence at a few blots’); for nitidus, cf. OLD s.v. 7, and note esp. Sen. Suas. 2.10 of Aurelius Fuscus, Ovid's teacher: huius suasoriae feci mentionem non quia in ea subtilitatis erat aliquid quod uos excitare posset, sed ut sciretis quam nitide Fuscus dixisset uel quam licenter (‘I have mentioned this suasoria not because it contained anything very subtle that might stimulate you, but so that you could learn how brilliantly Fuscus spoke—or how licentiously’).

²⁵ Catull. 64.47–8, recalling Catullus’ dedication of his libellum … expolitum (‘highly polished little book’) to Nepos in poem 1.

²⁶ On this, cf. Galinsky, G.K., Ovid's Metamorphoses. An Introduction to the Basic Aspects (Oxford, 1975), 81–2Google Scholar; Tissol, G., The Face of Nature. Wit, Narrative, and Cosmic Origins in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Princeton, 1997), 95–7Google Scholar; Barchiesi, A., The Poet and the Prince. Ovid and Augustan Discourse (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1997), 250Google Scholar; and Tamás, Á., ‘Reading Ovid reading Horace. The Empedoclean drive in the Ars poetica’, MD 72 (2014), 173–92Google Scholar.

²⁷ Given that Horace urges poets to take on a subject equal to their strength (38–9), it becomes clear that Ovid is something of a poetic superman.

²⁸ See Robinson (n. 3).

²⁹ Cf. Hinds, S., The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse (Cambridge, 1987), 103–4Google Scholar.

³⁰ For the topos of the many mouths and its epic connotations, see Robinson, M., A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 2 (Oxford, 2010), at 140–2Google Scholar with further bibliography.

³¹ The acrostic is not in Hilberg (n. 2 [1899]).

³² Reading ahead a few lines, we might detect the faint presence of cornua once again in the cornea ora of the transformed Meleagrides (546).

³³ If we just count the number of actual lines in the text (without worrying about deletion), we get a similar result—the centre being 8.538 (the last letter of the acrostic). In either case, we have an acrostic at the beginning, the middle and the end of the work; and as Horace says of the artist, he creates his work in such a way that ‘the middle is not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle’.

³⁴ Clauss, J.J., ‘An acrostic in Virgil (Eclogues 1.5–8): the chance that mimics choice’, Aevum(ant) 10 (1997), 267–87Google Scholar.

³⁵ Cf. Schmid, W., Virgil-Probleme (Göppingen, 1983), 317–18Google Scholar.

³⁶ For A-L-M-A, see Heil, A., Alma Aeneis: Studien zur Virgil- und Statiusrezeption Dante Alighieris (Frankfurt am Main, 2002), 59–61Google Scholar (who does not think that it is a deliberate acrostic); for the proposed ALMAE MOS, see Damschen (n. 2), 108 n. 64.

³⁷ Cf. Castelletti, C., ‘Following Aratus’ plow: Virgil's signature in the “Aeneid”’, MH 69 (2012), 83–95Google Scholar. Schmid (n. 35), 334–5 manages to extract (through a rather tortuous and extremely unlikely process involving mesostics and telestics) a dedication to Gaius Sosius from the Ille ego qui verses (MA SOSIOS S), and another one at the beginning of the Georgics.

³⁸ On this, see Robinson (n. 3). The acrostic seems to have escaped Hilberg (n. 2 [1899]).

³⁹ Lansing, R.H., ‘Virgil's homage to Homer in Aeneid 1.1–7’, Vergilius 54 (2008), 3–8Google Scholar argues that the forty-eight words of the proem of the Aeneid look to the forty-eight books of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and to the twenty-four words of the proem to Apollonius’ Argonautica.

⁴⁰ Katz (n. 17).

⁴¹ On these, see e.g. Brown (n. 18), 96–114; Carter, M., ‘Vergilium uestigare: Aeneid 12.587–8’, CQ 52 (2002), 615–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Katz (n. 2 [2016]), the latter with further bibliography; and Adkin, N., ‘A Virgilian onomastic (Ecl. 10,5–9)’, BStudLat 45 (2015), 112–16Google Scholar. I note one more such signature below, suggested to me by Stephen Heyworth.

⁴² For an overview of these, see the bibliography in Katz (n. 2 [2013]), with updates in Katz (n. 2 [2016]); and see the Appendix at the end of this article.

⁴³ Or, at least, nothing I would want to put in print at this stage.

⁴⁴ That is, by counting lines. The precise middle depends on one's edition and whether or not one includes the Helen episode. Using Conte's edition, the middle of the poem is at 7.191. For the position of this passage at the mathematical heart of the poem, see also Thomas, R.F., ‘Virgil's ecphrastic centerpieces’, HSPh 87 (1983), 175–84, at 180Google Scholar. For another acrostic in the middle, see n. 58 below for the Horatian acrostic noted by Julia Hejduk.

⁴⁵ As noted by Thomas (n. 44), 180.

⁴⁶ The acrostic is included in Hilberg's list of meaningless acrostics: Hilberg (n. 2 [1899]), 296.

⁴⁷ Fairclough, H.R. (rev. G.P. Goold), Virgil. Aeneid: Books VII–XII. Appendix Vergiliana (Cambridge, MA, 2000)Google Scholar, along with all subsequent translations from the Aeneid.

⁴⁸ Dr Calypso Nash suggests to me another possible signpost: that Virgil is here describing statues (signa) is perhaps an implicit link to the signa that have a long tradition in acrostic signposts: see e.g. the discussion of σήματα with which Aratus introduces the passage containing his ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic (768–71); and cf. also n. 18 above.

⁴⁹ Cf. e.g. Catull. 1.5–6 (of Nepos) ausus es … omne aeuum … explicare; Ov. Am. 2.1.11 ausus eram, memini, caelestia dicere bella with McKeown ad loc.; Am. 2.18.4 et tener ausuros grandia frangit Amor.

⁵⁰ ‘Grant approval to my bold undertaking’.

⁵¹ ‘I who toyed with shepherds’ songs, and, in youth's boldness, sang of you, Tityrus, under the canopy of a spreading beech’. Cf. also G. 2.175 ingredior sanctos ausus recludere fontis.

⁵² Cf. Carm. 1.3.25 and 27: for readings that see Virgil's voyage in Odes 1.3 as a poetic voyage, and audax as a comment on Virgil's poetic boldness, see the summary in Robinson, M., ‘Augustan responses to the Aeneid’, in Clarke, M.J., Currie, B. and Lyne, R.O.A.M. (edd.), Epic Interaction. Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the Epic Tradition Presented to Jasper Griffin (Oxford, 2006), 185–216, at 188–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Kearey (forthcoming) argues that Horace's OTIA acrostic at Sat. 2.1.7–11 engages with Virgil's OTIA acrostic at the end of the Georgics. In this passage, Trebatius advises Horace that if he cannot keep silent then he should write about Octavian (2.1.10–12): aut si tantus amor scribendi te rapit, aude | Caesaris inuicti res dicere, multa laborum | praemia laturus. As she comments, both of these acrostics ‘occur at points where the two poets actively negotiate poetic production in the newly autocratic Rome of the early 20s b.c. … [Horace's] aude (S. 2.1.10) echoes Virgil's audax (G. 4.565), though now the “audacity” is in writing imperial panegyric, rather than Virgil's youthful composition of the Eclogues’.

⁵⁴ On which, cf. e.g. Putnam, M.C.J., ‘Some Virgilian unities’, in Hardie, P. and Moore, H. (edd.), Classical Literary Careers and their Reception (Cambridge, 2010), 17–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ In this context of looking forwards and backwards, the presence of bifrons Janus at the centre of this semi-chiastic acrostic (as noted by the anonymous referee) seems entirely appropriate. The referee also notes various other chiastic effects in this section, with effigies ex ordine … Italus … Sabinus balanced by Saturnus … Iani … imago … alii ab origine reges. The referee also notes an interesting coincidence in terms of vocabulary between this passage and the passage containing the MARS acrostic a little later in the book at 7.601–15.

⁵⁶ MARtiaque Ob patriam PVgnando VulnERa passi (MARO – PV – VER).

⁵⁷ For another ‘second proem’ marked with an acrostic in Ovid, see Barbera, S. La, ‘Divinità occulte. Acrostici nei proemi di Ovidio e Claudiano’, MD 56 (2006), 181–4Google Scholar, who notes the gamma(ish) acrostic IANE at the beginning of the ‘second proem’ to the Fasti that begins Book 2; for anagrammatic wordplay at the beginning of Fasti 1 (an anagram of ‘Aratos’ concealed in the second line of the poem lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa canam), see Nelis, D., ‘Arise, Aratus’, Philologus 160 (2016), 177–9, at 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ A number of the acrostic authorial signatures listed in n. 15 above are found at the beginning of a text; as for the end, scholars have noted the akroteleuton NATV CEV AES in Catull. 60, first by Schmid, W., Catullus. Ansichten und Durchblicke (Göppingen, 1974), 102Google Scholar and also by Goold, G.P. (ed.), Catullus (London, 1983), 248Google Scholar; for an interesting discussion of this poem, its closural force and its akroteleuton, see Hawkins, S., ‘Catullus 60: Lesbia, Medea, Clodia, Scylla’, AJPh 135 (2014), 559–97Google Scholar. For Propertius’ authorial signature in the final poem of Book 1, see Dettmer (n. 17) and n. 16 above. In a recent paper Julia Hejduk noted the presence of SAPIS in the middle of the middle poem of the middle book of the Odes (2.10.13–18).

⁵⁹ Damschen (n. 2), 102–10.

⁶⁰ That the acrostic CANES (‘you are white’) in a description of the moon at Met. 15.194–8 looks back both to Aratus’ ΛΕΠΤΗ (in a description of the moon) and to its source (as some argue) in the acrostic ΛΕΥΚΗ (‘white’) at Hom. Il. 24.1–5.

⁶¹ Cf. e.g. Jacques, J.-M., ‘Sur un acrostiche d'Aratos (Phen., 783–787)’, REA 62 (1960), 48–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kronenberg explores the intertextual influence (both in acrostics and in ordinary text) of these two acrostics in some recent articles; the exploration of such acrostic intertextuality is also part of Julia Hejduk's ongoing work on acrostics, and in recent and forthcoming articles she discusses acrostics in Ovid, Lucan and Dante that look back to acrostics in Virgil. For bibliographical details, see the Appendix to this article. See also A. Grishin, Acrostics in Virgil's Poetry: The Problem of Authentication (MA Thesis, Harvard, 2009), 42–56.

⁶² Cf. Overduin (n. 15), 59–61 and on 345–53.

⁶³ Cf. Kearey (n. 53).

⁶⁴ Catull. 36.5–9. It should be noted that not all editors agree on the text. The manuscripts read et uos pessima at line 9, but the emendation nec uos pessima (on which the acrostic depends) has been suggested by a number of editors for literary reasons that have nothing to with acrostics. See Harrison, S. and Heyworth, S.J., ‘Notes on the text and interpretation of Catullus’, PCPhS 44 (1998), 85–109, at 91–2Google Scholar. Here at the close of Ovid's own epic, he evokes and inverts the ending Catullus has devised for the Annales of Volusius (fire cannot harm Ovid's Metamorphoses, which the poet himself will subsequently consign to the flames—though without ill effect), and evokes Catullus’ own (false) promise to put an end to his own (invective) poems.

⁶⁵ For other suggestions of acrostic intertextuality, see Danielewicz (n. 18), 287–95, who as well as offering some intertextual suggestions regarding the Ma-Ve-Pu passage in the Georgics also argues that PASA at Manilius 2.166–9 looks to ΠΑΣΑ at Arat. Phaen. 803–6.

⁶⁶ See Adkin, N., ‘“Read the edge”: acrostics in Virgil's Sinon episode’, ACD 50 (2014), 45–72, at 66–9Google Scholar; Fusi, A., ‘Un verso callimacheo di Virgilio (‘Aen.’ 8.685). Nuovi argomenti a favore di una congettura negletta’, Lexis 34 (2016), 217–48, at 240–5Google Scholar. Both of these papers only came to my attention after this article was completed. There is little overlap between my arguments and those of Adkin; there is a little more with the arguments of Fusi. We both note the problematic nature of the passage in which the acrostic appears; and we both note the self-referential nature of the passage, though I develop this approach somewhat differently to Fusi, who focusses more on the Callimachean context of the shield, arguing that LEPTE is sandwiched between two allusions to Callimachus; Fusi also suggests that the passage containing the acrostic represents in miniature the conflict between pietas and impietas represented on the shield, itself a miniature of the Aeneid.

⁶⁷ Verg. Aen. 8.675–728.

⁶⁸ The final chapter of Hardie, P., Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar is entitled ‘The shield of Aeneas: the cosmic icon’ (336–76), and discusses the shield of Aeneas in depth. Hardie argues (at 338–43) that the shield of Aeneas is to be read in the light of ancient Homeric exegesis, which saw the shield of Achilles as an allegory for the cosmos.

⁶⁹ Cf. Hardie (n. 68), 362–4, a section entitled ‘The shield as climax of the Aeneid’.

⁷⁰ Hardie (n. 68), 339.

⁷¹ See especially Nelis, D., Virgil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds, 2010), 339–59Google Scholar and Casali, S., ‘The making of the shield: inspiration and repression in the “Aeneid”’, G&R 53 (2006), 185–204Google Scholar; and see the useful bibliography on the shield in Vella, H., ‘Virgil's Aeneid VIII and the shield of Aeneas: recurrent topics and cyclic structures’, Studia Humaniora Tartuensia 5 (2004), 1–17Google Scholar.

⁷² It also underlines the intertextual link between Aeneas’ breastplate and the golden fleece: compare Aen. 8.622–3 with Arg. 4.125–6 with Nelis (n. 71), 356–7.

⁷³ With Aen. 8.633 tereti ceruice reflexa cf. Lucr. 1.35 (of Mars with Venus) atque ita suspiciens tereti ceruice reposta. That we find it also at Cic. Arat. fr. 9.5 (of Draco and the Bears) obstipum caput, a tereti ceruice reflexum has led some to believe that the phrase may be Ennian.

⁷⁴ Cf. Vita 22 and in Gell. NA 17.10.3. For the metapoetic elements here, see Barchiesi, A., ‘Virgilian narrative: ecphrasis’, in Martindale, C. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (Cambridge, 2006), 271–81, esp. 275–6, 278–9Google Scholar; Bartsch, S., ‘Ars and the man: the politics of art in Virgil's Aeneid’, CPh 93 (1998), 322–42, at 330Google Scholar. For Hardie (n. 68), 349–50, the echo has more abstract significance as representing the ‘bestowal of form’.

⁷⁵ Barchiesi (n. 74), 276.

⁷⁶ Putnam, M.C.J., Virgil's Epic Designs (New Haven, 1998), 134–5Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ Cf. e.g. Ov. Fast. 3.373–82; Dion. Hal. 2.71; Plut. Num. 13.2.

⁷⁸ Cf. e.g. Hardie (n. 68), 120–1 (on the Gauls): ‘The description of the attack of the Gauls … is the longest scene on the Shield of Aeneas before that depicting the battle of Actium, and it is curiously elaborate …’; at 125: ‘The two scenes that follow that of the Gauls on the Capitol, the religious ceremonies in lines 663–6 and the description of the Underworld in lines 666–70, have often caused difficulty’; Harrison, S., ‘The survival and supremacy of Rome: the unity of the shield of Aeneas’, JRS 87 (1997), 70–6, at 72Google Scholar (on 663–6): ‘the rock on which some previous interpretations have foundered’.

⁷⁹ Fusi (n. 66) also notes the problematic nature of this passage: his suggestion is that Catiline and Cato represent in miniature the battle between impietas and pietas that we see played out on a large scale between Antony and Augustus.

⁸⁰ Furthermore, the Gallic sack of Rome occurs approximately halfway between the founding of Rome by Romulus and its refounding by Augustus.

⁸¹ For Aratus’ LEPTE acrostic as an illustration of various senses of kosmos in the Phaenomena, see Hunter, R., ‘Written in the stars: poetry and philosophy in the Phaenomena of Aratus’, Arachnion 2 (1995)Google Scholar (online).

⁸² The presence of a transliterated Greek word as an acrostic would not be that surprising. For other suggested examples, see Castelletti, C., ‘A ‘Greek’ acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430–4)’, Mnemosyne 65 (2012), 319–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar (where he argues for AIDOS); Danielewicz (n. 18), who argues for PASA in Manilius; and frequent suggestions in the work of Adkin (see the Appendix at the end of this article).

⁸³ Further pointers to the edge might be found in the lanigeros apices—the ‘tops’ that are appropriately ‘wool-bearing’ on this non enarrabile textum. Fusi (n. 66) also sees apices as pointing to the acrostic, though he sees this working in conjunction with extuderat. Adkin (n. 66) argues that the presence of tumidi at 8.671 looks to Aratus’ παχίων at 785 in the same metrical sedes (both words connoting the opposite idea to λεπτός).

⁸⁴ Aratus seems to have begun the trend, playing with his own name with the ἄρρητον in the second line of the Phaenomena, on which see Levitan (n. 17), 68 n. 18; see also Katz (n. 17) and Nelis (n. 57).

⁸⁵ The bibliography on Dido's models is considerable. Pease, A.S., Aeneidos liber quartus (Cambridge, MA, 1935), 11–39Google Scholar is still a good starting point, as is Heinze's chapter in his Virgil's Epic Technique, transl. Harvey, H., Harvey, D. and Robertson, F. (London, 1999), part 1, chapter 3Google Scholar; and for a brief but useful summary (with references), see Muecke, F., ‘Foreshadowing and dramatic irony in the story of Dido’, AJPh 104 (1983), 134–55, at 144Google Scholar. See also Quint, D., Epic and Empire. Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton, 1993), 109–11Google Scholar, esp. for Dido as Polyphemus; for Dido and Medea, see Nelis (n. 71), 125–85; see also Spense, S., ‘Varium et mutabile: voices of authority in Aeneid 4’, in Perkell, C. (ed.), Reading Virgil's Aeneid. An Interpretive Guide (Norman, 1999), 80–95Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ The once-woman then-man nunc femina Caeneus appears in his/her gender ambiguity at 6.448–9, immediately followed by Dido at 450.

⁸⁷ Cf. Aen. 6.453–4, esp. aut uidet aut uidisse putat per nubila lunam with Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.1477–80 (Lynceus thinking he might have seen Heracles), esp. 1479–80 ὥς τίς τε νέης ἐνὶ ἤματι μήνην | ἢ ἴδεν ἢ ἐδόκησεν ἐπαχλύουσαν ἰδέσθαι. For this gendered aspect of Dido, see West, G.S., ‘Caeneus and Dido’, TAPhA 110 (1980), 315–24Google Scholar, and Tatum, J., ‘Allusion and interpretation in Aeneid 6.440–76’, AJPh 105 (1984), 434–52Google Scholar, both of whom discuss Dido's relationship with Ajax.

⁸⁸ In addition to West and Tatum mentioned in the previous note, see in particular Panoussi, V., Greek Tragedy in Virgil's Aeneid: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext (Cambridge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Panoussi, V., ‘Virgil's Ajax: allusion, tragedy, and heroic identity in the Aeneid’, ClAnt 21 (2002), 95–134Google Scholar; Conte, G.B. and Harrison, S., The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Virgilian Epic (Oxford, 2007), 158–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lefèvre, E., Dido und Aias: ein Beitrag zur römischen Tragödie (Mainz, 1978)Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ Aeneas’ address to Dido at Aen. 6.456–66; Dido's stony silence at Aen. 4.467–71. Compare Odysseus’ speech to Ajax at Od. 11.553–62; and Ajax's behaviour at Od. 11.543–4 and 11.563, noted by Serv. Aen. 6.468 tractum autem est hoc de Homero, qui inducit Aiacis umbram Vlixis conloquia fugientem, quod ei fuerat causa mortis.

⁹⁰ Panoussi (n. 88 [2002]), 105.

⁹¹ That the stories of Dido and Ajax have a similar arc (one that ends in suicide) may be one reason why we find the aidōs of Ajax privileged over that of Medea, for example. There may be even greater similarities in their narrative if, as has been suggested, Sophocles’ play presented a radical innovation in the Ajax story. We know of no version of the Ajax story prior to that of Sophocles in which Ajax, the great defender of the Achaeans, was actually planning to kill them. It is possible that such versions existed, but it is also possible that Sophocles presented a dramatic and shocking inversion of the usual story (see Heath, M. and Okell, E., ‘Sophocles’ Ajax: expect the unexpected’, CQ 57 [2007], 363–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar). In which case, recollection of Ajax at the start of Book 4 would provide a foretaste of the similarly striking inversion of the traditional narrative about Dido, in which the heroic queen died to save her pudor, not because she had violated it. For a good account of the various traditions surrounding Dido, see Desmond, M., Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid (Minneapolis, 1994), 23–73Google Scholar.

⁹² The acrostic is not in Hilberg (n. 2 [1899]). Dr Calypso Nash suggests to me that we can see a simultaneous telestic OSOS in the same lines, which—if one follows Adkin, N., ‘On a new Virgil acrostic: 6.77–84’, Mnemosyne 68 (2015), 1018–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar—can be read as an epigraphic form of OSVS (‘full of hate’). It is perhaps noteworthy that this is not the first time that Ajax has made an appearance in acrostic form: the word AIAS is the only gamma acrostic of four or more letters that we find in the Iliad (at Il. 16.358–61). For name-acrostics in Homer, see Hilton, J., ‘The hunt for acrostics by some ancient readers of Homer’, Hermes 141 (2013), 88–95Google Scholar. According to my own investigations, there are only two gamma acrostics of four or more letters in all of Homer: the ΑΙΑΣ acrostic just mentioned, and ΔΗΜΩ at Od. 24.27–30 (if we ignore the mute iota).

⁹³ Cf. Verg. Aen. 2.783–4 illic res laetae regnumque et regia coniunx | parta tibi.

⁹⁴ Literally, ‘she threw back her head in a gesture of refusal’.

⁹⁵ ‘With averted face the goddess kept her eyes fast upon the ground’.

⁹⁶ Not everyone will be happy with the idea of a reverse acrostic, but I hope to have suggested why the reversal is appropriate here. Reverse acrostics have been argued for elsewhere: cf. e.g. above on Ma-Ve-Pu and associated acrostics in the Georgics; and frequently in the work of Adkin (see the Appendix at the end of this article).

⁹⁷ Cf. O'Rourke, D., ‘Paratext and intertext in the Propertian poetry book’, in Jansen, L. (ed.), The Roman Paratext. Frame, Texts, Readers (Cambridge, 2014), 156–75, esp. 168–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As O'Rourke himself suggests (at 174), ‘Paratextual “special effects” on papyrus can be considered alongside other Hellenistic and Roman pyrotechnics: like acrostics, palindromes, technopaegnia or carmina figurata’. The culmination of these tendencies can be found in the remarkable figure poems of Optatian (fourth century a.d.), which contain all sorts of textual messages (via acrostics, telestics, shaded shapes). A useful introduction and exploration of this work can be found in Squire, M. and Wienand, J. (edd.), Morphogrammata. The Lettered Art of Optation. Figuring Cultural Transformations in the Age of Constantine (Paderborn, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁸ Gellius’ view is clear from his title to the chapter: cuimodi sint, quae speciem doctrinarum habeant, sed neque delectent neque utilia sint.