Antique Puzzles

  Salve amice, ut vales? Puzzles and riddles are as old as history itself. Ancient Greeks and Latins - from Epimenides ("all Cretans are liars") to Eubulides of Miletus ("this statement is false"), from Archimedes ("Ostomachion puzzle") to Celsus ("posthumous twins" problem) - were ingenious inventors of puzzles and paradoxes. They appreciated particularly simple and neat recreational math problems, playwords and riddles and used them for educational purposes. This page is a tribute to the inventiveness of our ancestors. Some ones of the puzzles presented here are from the late Roman and medieval period.
  On this page you'll find a collection of interesting latin rebuses and riddles, pangrams, a vanish puzzle, magic ROTAS squares, Greek and Latin palindromes, chronograms, tongue twisters, famous double-meaning sentences, anagrams, a verbal labyrinth, some jokes, and finally the Archimedes' puzzle (aka 'Stomachion' or 'Ostomachion'). Specta, lege atque delecteris. Vale!

:: Latin Pangrams ::

:: Latin magic square ::

S A T O R A R E P O T E N E T O P E R A R O T A S
Opposite is a variant called "ROTAS Square" inscription carved on the wall of a private house in Pompei (Click 'Start' to reveal the script)

:: Chronograms ::

"IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI"
This famous maccaronic verse, called "the devil's verse", is a riddle in the form of a palindrome - literally a puzzle inside a puzzle... It means "we wander in the night, and are consumed by fire" or "we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire" and is said to describe the movement of months. Some others believe that it is about the 'mayfly', that insect that circles the fire only to be consumed by flame.

See variants.

"SIGNA TE, SIGNA, TEMERE ME TANGIS ET ANGIS / ROMA TIBI SUBITO MOTIBUS IBIT AMOR"
According to a legend, the devil himself said this sentence to St. Martin, who had changed him into a donkey and ridden him to Rome. Each half of the sentence is palindromic; in translation: 'Cross thyself, you plague and vex me without need / For by my efforts you are about to reach Rome, the object of your travel'.

"SUM SUMMUS MUS"
'I am the mightiest mouse'

"ABLATA AT ALBA"
'Secluded but pure'

More Latin palindromes.

"NOMON O KIONOS EKHE SON OIKONOMON"
Another early Greek palindrome meaning "whoever you are, always let the law be your guide"

"PORTA PATENS ESTO NULLI CLAUDARIS HONESTO"
This sentence carved on the gate of an early Cistercian gatehouse means "Gate, be thou open - Never closed to honest man", but also "Gate, be thou never open - Closed to honest man"!

An ambiguous Latin message of the Archbishop of Esztergom (János) to the conspirators who killed queen Gertrudis, wife of the Hungarian King András II (1213):
"REGINAM NOLITE OCCIDERE TIMERE BONUM EST SI OMNES CONSENTIUNT EGO NON CONTRADICO"
Means: 'Don't kill the queen, it's good to be afraid of it, if everybody agrees, I don't, I oppose it' or 'Don't be afraid of killing the queen, it's good if everybody agrees, I don't oppose it'.

"I VITELLI DEI ROMANI SONO BELLI"
You can read this both in Latin and in Italian, but the meaning is not quite the same! (in Latin it means: 'go forth, Vitellius, on the call of war of the Roman God!', and in Italian: 'The Roman calves are beautiful')

"CANE NERO MAGNA BELLA PERSICA!"
'Sing, o Nero, the great Persian wars!', in Latin - 'The black dog eats a nice peach', in dialectical Italian.

"IN MARE IRATO, IN SUBITA PROCELLA INVOCO TE, NOSTRA BENIGNA STELLA"
This poetic verse has exactly the same meaning in Latin and in Italian!

"AMORE, MORE, ORE, RE VERVS AMICVS COGNOSCITVR"
(“You can recognize a true friend from affection, behavior, words and deeds”)
The phrase also comes in the version "amore more ore re // iunguntur amicitiae", (it seems medieval since it rhymes only if the -ae in amicitiae is pronounced like a long e and more and ore are not elided).

"RES VOLAT IN SILVIS, NIGRO VESTITA COLORE. SI CAPUT ABSTULERIS RES ERIT ALBA NIMIS"
(It flies in the woods, dressed in black clothes. If you take its head off it becomes very white)
Interpretation: cornix et nix (crow and snow).

"SI QVID DAT PARS PRIMA MEI, PARS ALTERA RODIT"
(If the first part gives me something, the following one erodes what I have received).
Interpretation: domus, do, mus (house, I give, mouse).

The late antiquity Greek poets Nestor of Laranda and Tryphiodorus of Sicily wrote lipogrammatic adaptations of the Homeric poems: Nestor composed an Iliad, which was followed by Tryphiodorus' Odyssey. Both Nestor's Iliad and Tryphidorous' Odyssey were composed of 24 books (like the original Iliad and Odyssey) each book omitting a subsequent letter of the Greek alphabet. Therefore, the first book omitted 'alpha', the second 'beta', the third 'gamma', and so forth.

"QVID NOBILEM REDDAT? NON GENS NOBILITAT, SED MENS, NON ORTUS, AT ARTES, NON GENUS, AT GENIVS"
(What makes you noble? Not your name, but your mind; not your origin, but your ability; not your descendants, but your ingenuity)

"IACET. TACET. PLACET"
(She lies. She is silent. Like it).
An epitaph written by an upset Roman husband for her too voluble wife.

:: Anagram ::

A famous Latin anagram was an answer made out of a question asked by Pilate. The question was: "QUID EST VERITAS?" ('What is the truth?'), and the answer: "EST VIR QUI ADEST" ('it is the man who stands before you').

 :: More historical Latin anagrams ::

On August 1610, Galileo Galilei sent the following coded message to Kepler to announce an important discovery he had made:
"SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEVMIBVNENVGTTAVRIAS"
Kepler worked hard to solve the enigma and concluded that the term was an anagram for a Latin verse to state that he had discovered a Moon around Mars:
"SALVE VMBISTINEVM GEMINATVM MARTIA PROLES" (in English: 'hail, burning twins, offspring of Mars'). But the real answer was:
"ALTISSIMVM PLANETAM TERGEMINVM OBSERVAVI" ('I have observed the highest planet [Saturn] in triplicate form'). In december of the same year, Galileo sent another anagram-like message to Kepler:
"HAEC IMMATVRA A ME IAM FRVSTRA LEGVNTVR O.Y."
which, translated, means roughly 'These immature ones have already been read in vain by me -oy'. Kepler again tried to decrypt the message and came up with this sentence:
"MACVLA RVFA IN IOVE EST GYRATVR MATHEM, ETC."
which in translation reads: 'There is a red spot in Jupiter which rotates mathematically' (The wondrous thing is: how could Kepler have known of the red spot in Jupiter, then not yet discovered? It was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in the 1660's, after the time of Kepler and Galileo!). About a month after, however, Galileo revealed the solution of his anagram:
"CYNTHIAE FIGVRAS AEMVLATVR MATER AMORVM"
'The mother of love imitates the shapes of Cynthia', in plain words Venus (the mother of Love) manifests all the phases that the Moon (Cynthia) goes through (and hence Venus must pass on both sides of the sun). Galileo's observation absolutely proved the Ptolemaic system wrong.

:: Labyrinth of St. Bernard ::

The table below is a sample of a verbal labyrinth which consists in forming 5 maxims by selecting words in a proper order. You can solve this puzzle by starting with the word at the foot of the left-hand column, then the first maxim will be: NOLI DICERE OMNIA QUAE SCIS QUIA QUI DICIT OMNIA QUAE SCIT SAEPE AUDIT QUOD NON VULT...

Ἀφυὴς γραμματικὸς ἐρωτηθείς· ἡ μήτηρ Πριάμου τίς ἐκαλεῖτο; ἀπορῶν ἔφη· ἡμεῖς κατὰ τιμὴν κυρίαν αὐτὴν καλοῦμεν.
An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "It's polite to call her Ma'am".

Μισογύναιος, τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ ἀποθανούσης, ἐπὶ τῶι θάψαι ἐκήδευε. τινὸς δὲ ἐρωτήσαντος· τίς ἀνεπαύσατο; ἔφη· ἐγὼ ὁ ταύτης στερηθείς.
A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?", he replied: "Me, now that I'm alone".

More Ancient Greek jokes are recorded in the 'Philogelos' of Hierocles and Philagrios.

Puer: Cur hi homines, pater, currunt?
Pater: Certant de argenteo calice
Puer: Et quis accipiet?
Pater: Primus
Puer: Cur igitur ceteri currunt?
A boy: Why are those men running?
The father: They compete in order to win a cup.
Boy: And who will win the cup?
Father: The first one...
Boy: So, why keep the other men running?

When Cicero saw his son-in-law, Lentulus, a man of small stature, with a long sword by his side, he said: "Quis generum meum ad gladium alligavit?" ('Who has girded my son-in-law to that sword?'). In another occasion, on seeing the half-length portrait of his brother Quintus, drawn with very large features and an immense shield, Cicero exclaimed: "Frater meus dimidius maior est quam totus!" ('Half of my brother is greater than the whole!').

Many similar wits of great men are recorded in the 'Saturnalia' of Macrobius.