Ryan Tribble (University of Iowa)
The Tree of Faunus (Aen. 12.766-790) may be modeled after the olive stump that is the recognition token between Odysseus and Penelope (Villalba). The Trojans cut down the intertextual tree (Thomas; Hinds) upon which sailors dedicated garments in thanks for divine protection. Yet why is Faunus associated with the sea (Tarrant)? Detecting allusion to Horace's "Pyrrha Ode", Ferenczi asks, "Why . . . connect the thankfulness of those [sailors] with [this] sacred wild olive?" Vergil's Tree of Faunus could be interpreted as requiting a gift, for Horace spells out Vergil's name in what Fowler would define as an embedded anagram: [VE]ntorumque [R]e[G]at . . . / obstrict[I]s a[LII]s . . . debes VERGILIUM (Carm. 1.3.3-6). Vergil is delivered to the shores of Greece, letters and all. Considering the "impossibility of metathesis", similar anagrams may be discovered (Oberhelman). Such subtle wordplay would not have gone unnoticed by Vergil, a poet known for his acrostic spelling out the first letters of his name, [MA]-[VE]-[PU] (Somerville; Hejduk).
I argue that Vergil's tree, an Odyssean recognition token (πυθμέν᾽ ἐλαίης, Od. 23.204) and an Iliadic gift exchange (Il. 6.230-236), is an homage to Horace who both associates himself with Faunus (Hemingson) and whose birthplace was founded by Diomedes (Serv. Aen. 11.246; cp. oppidulo. . . signis, Sat. 1.5.87-88). Faunus' olive stump, like that upon which Odysseus founds his marriage bed, is a recognition token between Vergil and Horace who themselves once slept together (dormitum ego Vergiliusque, Sat. 1.5.40), as well as an exchange of literary gifts distinguishing a friendship like Glaukos and Diomedes. Vergil "fashions a major" (μέγα σῆμα τέτυκται, Od. 23.188) though "secret clue" (σήματα λυγρά, Il. 6.168) by signposting a multi-layered allusion: "here once stood a tree revered by sailors" (Hic steterat, nautis olim venerabile lignum, Aen. 12.767). In addition to the "Pyrrha Ode", Vergil's tree verbally and syntactically recalls Horace: "I was once a fig tree, useless wood" (Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Sat. 1.8.1). This fig has been interpreted as autobiographical (Hill), recalling both Horace's loss of patrimonial land in Venusia for serving Brutus at Philippi (Nisbet) and his social restitution through Maecenas' gift of his Sabine farm (Bowditch). The Tree of Faunus is meant to recall Horace's autobiographical tree.
Vergil's pièce de résistance, though, is how he imitates Horace's previously unnoticed sphragis. Horace signposts and embeds implicit anagrams of his hometown (Sat. 1.5.87-88) and of his name (Epist. 1.10.49-50). Horace's "signis" (Sat. 1.5.88) alerts the reader to look for VENUSIA; similarly, epistolary convention prompts the reader to look for a signature at the end of his letter. Considering "the impossibility of metathesis", each letter of these anagrams must be counted in the order of their appearance in the target word, and they must be divided across two consecutive lines: VEN/USIA and HORA/TIUS. A similar pattern is embedded into Vergil's Tree of Faunus: [H]ic steterat, nautis [O]lim uene[RA]bile lignum / serua[TI] ex [U]ndi[S]. . . As Glaukos exchanges armor with Diomedes, so Vergil makes a witty exchange spelled as HORA/TIUS.