Book Description:
REPRINT. Special Description Note This is not a print on demand edition. Care has been taken to enhance and improve the original text whenever possible. Martino Publishing follows the standards of traditional printing and quality is a primary concern. We distinguish ourselves from Print on Demand by our quality controls, paper quality and binding quality.. Reprint. Hardbound. Octavo. x, 245, 1 p. front. (facsim). Oxford, B. Blackwell, 1923. In the opening chapters of this book, entitled 'The Cipher of Attic Tragedy' and 'The Homeric Cipher,' Prof. Margoliouth extends to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Homer the methods already applied by him to Euripides in 'Chronograms of the Euripidean Dramas' (1915). He believes that the tragedians hid away in the introductory iambics of each of their plays, firstly, their signature, secondly, the date of composition, thirdly, a dedication to Athena, and lastly, a warning to look for no further cryptic information after this point. Taking the iambics two lines at a time, he proceeds to rearrange the letters of which they consist into two new trimeters, which under more or less vigorous pressure yield a suggestion of the sense required. In the case of Homer the procedure is somewhat different, the anagrams again in trimeters being extracted from Iliad, 11. 1 7, and Odyssey, ll. 1 10, broken up into groups consisting of two consecutive letters from each line. The result is startling. The vexed question of Homer's birthplace is found to be settled in favor of Ios, one of the minor Sporades, and the two great epics are revealed as having been written by the poet in an official capacity for a Greek ruler of post war Troy (now called ' Xew Ilion ') who was at the same time 'a scion of Aeneas.' For the remarkable theories as to Homer and his poetry which Prof. Margoliouth develops on the basis of his 'cipher ' and for their connexion with Aristotle's theory of fiction the curious inquirer must be referred to the book itself.
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