This note examines the significance of Gylippus at Aen. 12.271–83 and argues that Virgil's narrative is an epitaphic gesture alluding to Nicander of Colophon, Anth. Pal. 7.435 and other epigrams from Anth. Pal. 7. Virgil's bilingual reader would participate in the Hellenistic Ergänzungsspiel and supplement further meaning to this otherwise generic scene.

While surviving the shipwreck and the viper bite in Acts 28.1–6 have often been recognised as symbolic assertions of Paul's innocence, the viper may hold further symbolic significance. Following his act of matricide in 59 ce, Nero was linked to Aeschylus’ portrayal of Orestes, who, in turn, was linked to a tradition that understood a viper's birth as matricidal. Thus, through his encounter with the viper, Paul symbolically ‘appears before’ the emperor Nero—something that is anticipated yet never happens overtly in the narrative of Acts itself.

This article examines the verb τιθαιβώσσω, a Homeric hapax legomenon of unknown meaning and etymology: it reviews its use in Hellenistic poetry and strives to provide a contextually plausible meaning for the verb (‘to sting’), as well as for the related adjective θιβρός (‘stinging, mordant, piquant’). It argues that τιθαιβώσσω is etymologically related to Latin fīgere ‘insert, pierce’, fībula ‘pin’, Lithuanian díegti ‘to poke, sting’, and Tocharian B tsākā- ‘to bite’.