Sources Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse. Though there may already have been anthologies of riddles written down in the Hellenistic period, these do not survive. By far the largest extant collection of Antique Greek riddles is Book 14 of the
Greek Anthology, as preserved in Codex Parisianus suppl. Graecus 384, which contains about 50 verse riddles. They are in a group of about 150 puzzles: the first fifty or so are oracles; the second fifty or so are arithmetical problems; and the third fifty or so riddles in the traditional sense. but the emergence of the compilation in its present form is generally associated with
Constantine Cephalas, working in the tenth century. Most concern everyday objects such as smoke, a fish, a mirror, wine, or pipes; the second largest group concern mythological figures, taxing the audience's knowledge of the details of their stories. It is likely that among the forerunners of the
Greek Anthology, the ninth-century anthology of Cephalus contained riddles. Allegedly,
Athenaeus of Naucratis (fl. c. 200 AD) compiled a copious anthology of ancient Greek riddles citing some 1,250 authors under the title
Epitome.
Ancient riddles and riddle-culture According to Naerebout and Beerden, In the competitive Greek societies, words were a primary locus of competition: there can be no doubt about the popularity of wordplay in the Greek world. Riddles shared in this popularity:
sympotic riddles are particularly well attested--it seems there was no symposium without a fair number of riddles. The contest-riddle was a known form of riddling. So riddling pervaded Greek life on many levels and during many occasions. A key source for this culture is
Athenaeus. The most famous Classical riddle is the
Riddle of the Sphinx:
Oedipus killed the
Sphinx by grasping the answer to the riddle it posed. This is just one example, however, of a considerable body of riddlic oracles in
Ancient Greek literature: the gods' enigmatic answers to people asking questions of oracles appears to have been a significant literary trope, amongst other things a way to warn listeners of the perils and difficulties of seeking divine guidance.
Heraclitus's enigmatic style overlaps to some extent with riddles. Although
Plato reports that ancient Greek children did indeed engage in riddle play (Republic 479c), he also recognized the important function that riddles can play in showing what cannot literally be said about ultimate truths (Letters, book 2, 312d).
Aristotle considered riddles important enough to include discussion of their use in his Rhetoric. He describes the close relationship between riddles and metaphors: "Good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors; for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor". Aristotle is not known to have composed riddles, but 'among his
pseudepigrapha there apparently was a collection of metaphorical, riddle-like phrases and expressions', now lost. Some of the riddles in the
Greek Anthology may date back to the ancient period. The following, for example, is an example of the widespread
year-riddle attributed to
Cleobulus (fl. C6 BCE): There is one father and twelve children; of these each Has twice thirty daughters of different appearance: Some are white to look at and the others black in turn; They are immortal and yet they all fade away. (The answer is the year and its days and nights.) Other examples from the
Greek Anthology, as translated by E. S. Forster, include: My mother I bring forth, she brings forth me: I'm sometimes greater, sometimes less than she. (xiv.41) I look at you whene'er you look at me; You see but I see not; no sight have I; I speak but have no voice; your voice is heard; My lips can only open uselessly. (xiv.56) One wind there is: ten sailors row amain Two vessels, and one steersman steers the twain. (xiv.14) I am a black child sprung from a bright sire, A wingless bird, fleeting to heaven from earth. Each eye that meets me weeps, but not from grief, And in thin air I vanish at my birth. (xiv.5) A blackened lump am I-and fire begat me: My mother was a tree on mountain steep. I save from wounds the chariot of the sea, If my sire melts me in a vessel deep. (xiv.61) The answer are: night and day; a reflection in a mirror; double flute played by one person with ten fingers; smoke; pitch, used for caulking ships. The last of Greece's known literary non-Christian riddle-masters is the
Emperor Julian. ==Byzantine period==