Kitap 17
9
THERE are volumes of letters of Gaius Caesar addressed to Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, who had charge of his affairs in his absence. In certain parts of these letters ii. p. 137, Dinter. 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. See Suet. Jul. lvi. 6, who says that Caesar wrote d for a, and so on with the other letters. 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.
