Another Hidden Anagram in Valerius Flaccus

In Valerius' Argonautica, there are many proleptic references to Medea's tragic future and the murdering of her children.1Although the meaning of these prophecies and visions is out of reach for the characters in the epic, the external audience could hardly have failed to understand the allusions and the poet further teases the readers by inserting Medea's name as a reversed anagram at the close of these flash-forwards.2Indeed, as L.B.T. Houghton convincingly argues, the seer Mopsus' question about the murderous woman that he sees in his trance (V.Fl.1.224-225: quaenam caede madens?, 'Who is this woman covered in blood?') spells out the answer: cAEDE Madens (1.225).3The same reversed caption identifies the mysterious feminine figure sculpted on the doors of the Colchian temple (V.Fl.5.451-454: Colchis nondum noscentibus quae cAEDE Madens, 'For the Colchians who did not yet know who was the woman covered in blood').4In support of this argument, I would add that the presence of wordplay in ancient texts is often glossed by a set of hints pointing toward the hidden pun,5 and this is also the case here: the first anagram is signposted by the word ambage (V.Fl.1.227) referring to the ambiguity of the prophecy quite literally, since part of line 225 can be read in

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• "Valerius Flaccus' "Argonautica

  Joseph Pucci, Debra Hershkowitz•The Classical World•2000

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