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• Acrostic shit (Ecl. IV 47-52)

  21–37

  Neil Adkin

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  190

  The cacata-acrostic (Ecl. IV 47-52) is considered accidental, as being inconsistent with the dignitas of this “Messianic” Eclogue. It is however possible to demonstrate that Virgil employs such acrostics on other occasions with the object of undercutting such political panegyric. The intentionality of this cacata-acrostic is further buttressed by clues in the lines it spans as well as by winks tipped in other parts of the poem. Pointers to this acrostic are also embedded in the foregoing third Eclogue, especially in the section devoted to Pollio, dedicatee of Eclogue IV. Problematic passages in both these Eclogues are elucidated by the presence of the cacataacrostic.

• Ennodius und Martial

  195–205

  Tamás Adamik

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  90

  Magnus Felix Ennodius, the bishop of Ticinum (modern Pavia), died in 521. He has left letters, poems, oratorical pieces, saints’ lives and controversial literature. Ennodius’ writings were composed for specific audiences on particular occasions. His Latinity is very literate, syntactically complex, and difficult to understand. He cultivates the short literary forms: letters, panegyrics, declamatory themes (dictiones), short poems, epithalamium, epigrams, epitaphs, hymns. In the preface of his epithalamium for Maximus, he displays the essential qualities of spring with Martial’s vocabulary. This fact directed my attention to the relation of Ennodius to Martial. Comparing Ennodius’s epigrams with Martial’s, I realized that in his epigrams Ennodius imitated Martial both in topics and expressions.