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[p. 235] who had charge of his affairs in his absence. In certain parts of these letters 1 there are found individual characters which are not connected to form syllables, but apparently are written at random; for no word can be formed from those letters. But a secret agreement had been made between the correspondents about a change in the position of the letters, so that, in writing, one name and position was given to one letter and another to another, but in reading its own place and force was restored to each of them. 2 But which letter was written for which was, as I have already said, agreed upon by those who devised this secret code. There is in fact a commentary of the grammarian Probus, On the Secret meaning of the Letters appearing in the Epistles of Gains Caesar, which is a very careful piece of work.

But the ancient Lacedaemonians, when they wanted to conceal and disguise the public dispatches sent to their generals, in order that, in case they were intercepted by the enemy, their plans might not be known, used to send letters written in the following manner. There were two thin, cylindrical wands of the same thickness and length, smoothed and prepared so as to be exactly alike. One of these was given to the general when he went to war, the other the magistrates kept at home under their control and seal. When the need of more secret communication arose, they bound about the staff a thong of moderate thickness, but long enough for the purpose, in a simple spiral, in such a way that the edges of the thong which was twined around the stick met and were joined throughout. Then they wrote the dispatch on that thong across

1 ii. p. 137, Dinter.

2 See Suet. Jul. lvi. 6, who says that Caesar wrote d for a, and so on with the other letters.

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