08-22-2009, 05:38 AM
Seutonius says that Augustus had a rather simple method for writing secret messages:
According to Seutonius this is the same method Caesar used:
Several weeks ago I was watching a documentary on television that claimed Augustus had another method that involved using the start of the Iliad (I think) as some sort of cipher code. Now I don’t remember exactly what the documentary said, but I’ve seen this mentioned on other websites, including for a cryptography class in a university in New York State, so I must not have dreamed it.
But the problem is I’ve been vainly trying to find out the source for this information, to no avail. Has anyone ever heard of another type of cipher used by Augustus besides that which Seutonius mentions?
Quote: Whenever he wrote in cipher, he wrote B for A, C for B, and the rest of the letters on the same principle, using AA for X.
Augustus, 88
According to Seutonius this is the same method Caesar used:
Quote: There are also letters of his to Cicero, as well as to his intimates on private affairs, and in the latter, if he had anything confidential to say, he wrote it in cipher, that is, by so changing the order of the letters of the alphabet, that not a word could be made out. If anyone wishes to decipher these, and get at their meaning, he must substitute the fourth letter of the alphabet, namely D, for A, and so with the others.
Caesar, 56.6
Several weeks ago I was watching a documentary on television that claimed Augustus had another method that involved using the start of the Iliad (I think) as some sort of cipher code. Now I don’t remember exactly what the documentary said, but I’ve seen this mentioned on other websites, including for a cryptography class in a university in New York State, so I must not have dreamed it.
But the problem is I’ve been vainly trying to find out the source for this information, to no avail. Has anyone ever heard of another type of cipher used by Augustus besides that which Seutonius mentions?
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
www.davidcord.com