Symphosius

Witty, verbally dexterous, and urbane, Symphosius is regarded as the father of the Literary Riddle. His sole surviving work, the Symphosii Scholastici Aenigmata [Riddles of the Scholar Symphosius], became the model for medieval riddle collections, especially in England where it provoked a literary vogue and was used as a school text. The Aenigmata, included in the Codex Salmasianus, comprises one hundred tristich hexameter riddles each solved by its own title. The collection is accompanied by a brief preface in which Symphosius claims, rather implausibly in view of the polished and schematized nature of the Aenigmata, to have improvised the riddles at the feast of the Saturnalia.