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ON FIGS: BRUTUS AND THE RAVEN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2026

Domenico Giordani
Domenico Giordani*
Affiliation:
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
*
domenico.giordani@lmh.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This note examines the semantics of figs in Greek and Roman culture, pointing to their association with the opposition between truth and falsehood. The relevance of this association is explored in relation to a detail in the story of Brutus (Postumius Albinus, FRHist F2 = Macrob. Sat. 3.20.5) and an aetiological episode in Ovid’s Fasti (Ov. Fast. 2.243–66).

Keywords

figsRoman cultureanthropologyaffordanceBrutusOvid

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The Classical Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 6
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Fruit, much like animals or plants, possesses properties that can be meaningfully engaged with. These properties are essential for determining practical uses but also offer the potential to generate clusters of meaning that extend beyond immediate utility. The concept of affordance has been used to analyse this potential for constructing cultural meaning. Originally developed within the approach known as ecological psychology, this concept suggests that humans ascribe cultural significance to animals, plants, or fruits based on a specific perception of the properties they possess. In other words, the affordances they offer invite particular associations, rendering them suitable recipients of symbolic meaning.Footnote 1 Affordances are highly contextual—an association activated in one culture may not be in another. Once established, such associations slip into the murky realm of common knowledge, circulating freely across the boundaries between unauthorized and authorized culture.Footnote 2 As a result, clusters of meaning grounded in affordances are seldom made explicit, and their relevance in our sources often remains obscure. This note aims to shed light on one particular aspect of the affordances that figs present in Greek and Roman culture. Specifically, it will be argued that figs afforded an association with the opposition between truth and falsehood. The significance of this association will then be explored in relation to a detail in the story of Brutus and an aetiological episode in Ovid’s Fasti.

TO CALL A FIG A FIG

Figs have a prominent place in popular lore.Footnote 3 Menander entrusted the prologue of one of his plays to the personification of Elenchos. This forthright deity prides itself on calling a spade a spade—or, as you say in Greek, ‘calling a fig a fig’ (τὰ σῦκα σῦκα ὀνομάζειν).Footnote 4 A comprehensive review of the various attempts to explain the etymology of συκοφάντης lies beyond the scope of this discussion. It suffices to note that the cross-cultural apotropaic gesture known as ‘fig’ in several IE languages, arguably linked to the association with genitals that figs afford (see n. 4 below), is likely to have bearing on this term.Footnote 5 However, this does not undermine the epistemic value of autoschediastic stories that portray sycophants as either tax-collectors back in the time when taxes levied on citizens consisted of natural products such as figs (cf. Philomnestos, FGrHist 527 F1 = Ath. Deipn. 3.74f), or as individuals who ‘showed’ people guilty of illegally exporting Attic figs (cf. Istros, FGrHist 334 F12 = Ath. Deipn. 3.74e; Plut. De soll. an. 24 and other lexicographical sources cited in Jacoby FGrHist IIIb 636–7). Calling out fig thieves—the task of a sycophant according to Suda—does not stray far from the latter (cf. Suda 3567 ἀποσυκάζεις [1.323 Adler]).Footnote 6 In any case, it is apparent that this was an ancient puzzle, so much so that a character in a comedy by Alexis wondered how such a sweet fruit could come to describe a rascal rather than a good bloke, as it should.Footnote 7

Thus, it emerges that, while calling a fig a fig signified speaking the truth, talking and showing figs also marked someone as a slanderous informer and a liar. This very duplicity helps explain the connection between figs and Hermes, the ambivalent god of communication.Footnote 8 Notably, figs were eaten with honey in the ritual for his Egyptian analogue—Thoth. In this ritual, celebrated on the 19th of the first month of the year, the connection between the sweetness of figs and the sweetness of truth was explicitly foregrounded (Plut. De Is. et Os. 378B ἑορτάζοντες τῷ Ἑρμῇ μέλι καὶ σῦκον ἐσθίουσιν ἐπιλέγοντες· ‘ἡδὺ ἡ ἀλήθεια’).Footnote 9

Similar associations are widespread across time and place. In the sixth century c.e., John the Lydian asserts that fig trees are not struck by lightning and reports that those who wish to receive a true epiphany and dispel misleading apparitions only eat figs.Footnote 10 These associations also seem to spill over into other traditions. While the fig tree is notoriously associated with Israel,Footnote 11 one detail in the apocryphal tradition about the death of Judas, whose epithet Iscariot may actually mean ‘liar’,Footnote 12 is probably related to the complex of associations we have just illustrated. According to Matthew, Judas ‘went away and hanged himself’ (Matthew 27:5–6 καὶ ῥίψας τὰ ἀργύρια εἰς τὸν ναὸν ἀνεχώρησεν καὶ ἀπελθὼν ἀπήγξατο). This accords with the scriptures, in which those hanged on a tree are described as cursed by God.Footnote 13 Plant-lore has it that he hanged himself on the Judas tree (cercis siliquastrum), a name possibly originating from a corruption of its geographic designation as Judea’s tree.Footnote 14 According to other versions, the tree is either an elder tree (cf. Watts [n. 14], 131 and 215) or indeed a fig tree. The earliest reference to a fig tree appears in the poem on the gospels by the fourth-century c.e. poet Juvencus.Footnote 15 This version, in which Judas hangs himself on a fig tree, may be influenced by the fig’s connection to sycophants and, more broadly, by the association with the opposition between truth and falsehood that this fruit affords.

BRUTUS AND THE RAVEN

Shifting the focus to Roman culture, I shall now consider some hitherto unnoticed implications of the presence of figs in two episodes—the story of Brutus and the aition about the constellation of the raven in Ovid’s Fasti.Footnote 16 Let us start with Brutus. As is well known, his Hamlet-like folly at the court of Tarquinius manifests itself through various symptoms.Footnote 17 The Republican annalist A. Postumius Albinus (cos. 151 b.c.e.) reports that one of the ways in which Brutus played the fool—that is, brutus—was by eating unripe figs soaked in honey:Footnote 18

Postumius Albinus annali primo de Bruto: ‘ea causa sese stultum brutumque faciebat, grossulos ex melle edebat.’

Postumius Albinus in the first book of his Annals on Brutus: ‘for that reason he used to make himself out to be a fool and a simpleton; he used to eat little figs unripe in honey.’

To obtain the revenge he is after, Brutus must put on a deceptive appearance of foolishness, and the fig proves an ideal ally. One of the names for the wild fig, φήληξ, was thought to refer—possibly etymologicallyFootnote 19—to the fruit’s misleading appearance of maturity when it was in fact still unripe and inedible.Footnote 20 A modern testament to the deceptive appearance of figs occurs in Giovambattista Basile’s riddle-like description of a perfectly ripe fig as one that looks like it is wearing beggar’s rags (the peel coming off it) and has the neck of a hanged man (an elongated stalk) and the tears of a whore (a drop of sap oozing out of it).Footnote 21 In a similar kind of implicit riddle, Brutus appears here as the opposite of the figs he is eating, for his aim is to hide maturity beneath a deceptive cover of underdevelopment that corresponds prima facie to his feigned stupidity. Riddles inform other parts of the story of Brutus. Indeed, a riddle-like mechanism underlies both Tarquin’s dream in Accius’ Brutus, in which the play’s namesake protagonist is transfigured into a ram butting the king to the ground,Footnote 22 and Brutus’ offering—a log concealing a golden rod (Livy 1.56 per ambages effigiem ingenii sui)—to the oracle at Delphi, whose riddle he alone is able to solve.Footnote 23 Furthermore, unripe figs may figuratively hint at the time that needs to pass before Brutus can reveal his true self. In his Discourses, the slave-philosopher Epictetus advises a man who is impatient that his brother makes peace with him:Footnote 24

ἄν μοι νῦν λέγῃς ὅτι ‘θέλω σῦκον’ ἀποκρινοῦμαί σοι ὅτι ‘χρόνου δεῖ’. ἄφες ἀνθήσῃ πρῶτον, εἶτα προβάλῃ τὸν καρπόν, εἶτα πεπανθῇ. εἶτα συκῆς μὲν καρπὸς ἄφνω καὶ μιᾷ ὥρᾳ οὐ τελειοῦται, γνώμης δ’ ἀνθρώπου καρπὸν θέλεις οὕτως δι’ ὀλίγου καὶ εὐκόλως κτήσασθαι;

If you tell me now, ‘I want a fig’, I’ll reply, ‘That takes time.’ Let the fig tree first come into blossom and then bring forth its fruit, and then let the fruit grow to ripeness. So if even the fruit of a fig tree does not come to maturity all at once and in a single hour, would you seek to gather the fruit of human judgement in such a short time and with such ease?

Just like the fig in this arguably popular image, the fruit of Brutus’ mind requires time to ripen.Footnote 25 The unripe figs that make him look like a fool signal that the time has not yet come but will in due course.Footnote 26 It is, in sum, apparent that consuming grossuli is tied to Brutus’ deceit regarding his own self, to his ‘unripeness’ to disclose the truth about it, and to his slow maturation into the fiercely quick-witted character he will turn into when times are ripe.

Figs also feature in an aition recounted in the Fasti. To account for the constellation rising on the Ides of February—the Raven, the Crater and the Snake—Ovid tells a little story about Apollo and his messenger bird, the raven.Footnote 27 Entrusted with the task of filling a crater with water and bringing it back to his master, the bird lingers by ‘a fig tree … thickly covered with fruit that was still hard’ (2.253 adhuc duris ficus densissima pomis) and waits until these grossuli ripen. Upon his return, he presents a snake to Apollo and lies about the cause of his delay (2.258 fictaque uerba refert).Footnote 28 It has been observed that ficta may yield a pun on ficus.Footnote 29 Be it a coincidence or not, as messenger of a god, the raven is, like Hermes, exposed to the dynamics of truth and falsehood.Footnote 30 Of all the fruits the poet might have chosen, figs appear to have been selected to underscore this aspect of the aetiology.Footnote 31

Further examples may be out there for scholars to notice.Footnote 32 For instance, it may be significant that it is specifically a seller of figs who gives Crassus a warning before Carrhae by means of an omen concealed beneath the deceptive cover of the homophonic pun on their provenance from Kaunos—Cauneas as if it were caue ne eas.Footnote 33 In any case, it appears that clusters of meaning revolving around truth and falsehood converge around this fruit. Figs afford them.

Footnotes

*

This research has been carried out under the aegis of the project «Ordering, Constructing, Empowering: Fragments of the Roman Republican Antiquarians (FRRAnt)», ERC-2019-Consolidator Grant [Agreement ID: 866400]. I wish to thank Valentina Arena, Stephen Blair and Antonino Pittà—my colleagues at FRRAnt—for their stimulus. I owe special thanks to Marius del Core, Richard M.A. Marshall, Adalberto Magnavacca, Giuseppe Pezzini, Federico Rossi and Roy Vickery for providing references and reading drafts. I am particularly grateful to Martina Farese, who first drew my attention to this problem and generously shared her thoughts about it with me.

References

1 On the concept of affordance and its application to ancient cultures, see M. Bettini, Women and Weasels: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome (Chicago and London, 1998), 123–30.

2 On the notion of popular culture as unauthorized culture, see H.N. Parker, ‘Toward a definition of popular culture’, History and Theory 50 (2011), 147–70.

3 Magnus’ speech on figs offers a wealth of information in this regard: cf. Ath. Deipn. 3.74d–79a; in the subsequent speech, the physician Daphnos distils dietetic guidance from ancient literature on figs: cf. Ath. Deipn. 3.79a–80e. Macrobius is another valuable source on figs: cf. Macrob. Sat. 3.20.1–5. On figs in antiquity, see F. Olck, ‘Feige’, RE 6.2 (1909), cols. 2100–51. V. Buchheit, ‘Feigensymbolik im antiken Epigramm’, RhM 103 (1960), 200–29 provides an overview of the symbolic meanings of figs in Greek and Latin epigrams, focussing especially on their sexual connotations (see n. 4 below).

4 Men. incertae fabulae, fr. 507 K.–A. = Lucian, Pseudol. 4; see also Lucian, Hist. conscr. 41. For versions of this saying in other languages, see R. Tosi, Dizionario delle sentenze latine e greche (Milan, 1991), 139–40. Note that the Italian pane al pane e vino al vino links the act of speaking the truth to eucharistic symbols, which, according to some, contain Christ’s body and therefore truth itself: cf. Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine Domini 10 (pages 94–100 Vaillancourt). Interestingly, the French expression il faut appeler un chat un chat appears to be a euphemistic reformulation whereby figue ‘fig’—still attested in Rabelais and perhaps perceived as resembling the obscene Italian fica/figa ‘pussy’—is first replaced by chatte ‘pussycat’ but also ‘pussy’, and then by chat ‘cat’, which neutralizes the inappropriateness. In antiquity, figs carry sexual connotations and/or refer to female genitalia: cf. e.g. Plaut. Merc. 943–5; Mart. 4.52, 12.33, 12.96.9; Anth. Pal. 16.240, 241; see also the material gathered in Buchheit (n. 3) and the examples from Attic comedy discussed in J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse. Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (Oxford and New York, 1991), 64–5 and 117–20.

5 Cf. A.B. Cook, ‘ΣΥΚΟΦΑΝΤΗΣ’, CR 21 (1907), 133–6 with Ov. Fast. 5.433–4.

6 Note also that Verrius (Fest. page 392 Lindsay) recorded a definition of sycophants as Attic officials responsible for carrying out death sentences on fig thieves. According to his Life, Aesop overcomes his mutism to make two fellow slaves vomit the figs they had surreptitiously stolen from their master: cf. Vita Aesopi 2–3 with L. Kurke, Aesopic Conversations. Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose (Princeton and Oxford, 2011), 191–2 and M. Beard, Laughter in Ancient Rome. On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (Berkeley, 2014), 137–40 (other stories centred on figs are mentioned at 176–7). Further, Aesop is made to wear a necklace of figs like the two ritual φαρμακοί driven away during the Targelia: cf. Helladios (RE 2.8.1.98–102 [Gudeman]) = Phot. Bibl. 279.534a page 182 Henry (black figs for the male scapegoat, white for the female one, possibly representing their genitals: see n. 4 above) with L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin and Boston, 1962), 179–98 and F.R. Adrados, ‘The Life of Aesop and the origins of novel in antiquity’, QUCC n.s. 1 (1979), 93–112, at 107; see also N.G. Wilson, ‘Aristophanes, Wasps 897: κλῷος σύκινος’, CQ 25 (1975), 151 on the collar of figs mentioned at Ar. Vesp. 897 and M.-M. Mactoux, ‘Esclaves et rites de passage’, MÉFRA 102 (1990), 56–64 on figs in καταχύσματα and other rites of passage.

7 Alexis fr. 187.1–4 (Ποιηταί or Ποιητής) ὁ συκοφάντης οὐ δικαίως τοὔνομα | ἐν τοῖσι μοχθηροῖσίν ἐστι κείμενον. | ἔδει γάρ, ὅστις χρηστὸς ἦν ἡδύς τ’ ἀνήρ, | τὰ σῦκα προστεθέντα δηλοῦν τὸν τρόπον with W.G. Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary (Cambridge, 1996), 551–3.

8 For Hermes and figs, see Ar. Plut. 1120–2, Anth. Pal. 6.299 and a third-century c.e. encomium of the fig preserved on papyrus (P.Oxy. 2084), in which the dried fig is praised as ‘Hermes’ most beloved foodstuff and delicacy’ (col. II lines 1–4 ἰσχάδα τὴν Ἑρμοῦ προσφιλεστάτην τροφὴν καὶ τρυφήν): cf. A. Vergados, ‘Hermes and the figs. On P.Oxy. 2084’, in J.F. Miller and J. Strauss Clay (edd.), Tracking Hermes, Pursuing Mercury (Oxford, 2019), 309–21. The proverb σῦκον ἐφ’ Ἑρμῇ (cf. e.g. Hsch. 2236 [3.367 Hansen] παροιμία ἐπὶ τῶν κειμένων ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τῶν βουλομένων. ὁπότε γὰρ φανείη σῦκον πρῶτον, τῷ Ἑρμῇ ἀνετίθεσαν and Zen. 5.92) stems from the practice of dedicating figs to Hermes by laying them on herms. Once placed on the statue, such offerings could be treated by passers-by as ἕρμαια and picked up at will: cf. H.S. Versnel, Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology (Berlin and Boston, 2011), 364–7.

9 The anonymous author of the encomium cited at n. 8 calls the fig ‘the sister of honey’ (col. II lines 11–12 μέλιτος μὲν οὖσαν ἀ[δε]λφή[ν]), linking figs and honey to the sweet eloquence of Nestor (col. III lines 4–11): cf. Vergados (n. 8), 312–13. Note also that figs, along with honey and dates, were part of the strenae, the gifts exchanged on the kalends of January and therefore associated with Janus, who, in Ovid’s Fasti, maintains that their sweetness bodes well for the year ahead: cf. Ov. Fast. 1.185–8.

10 Lydus, Mens. 4.4 (pages 68–9 Wünsch).

11 Cf. Hosea 9:10 ‘When I found Israel, / it was like finding grapes in the desert; / when I saw your ancestors, / it was like seeing early fruit on the fig tree (תְאֵנָה’)’ or Jeremiah 24, where the Lord presents two ‘baskets of figs’ representing good and bad Jews: see also Micah 4:4. In Jeremiah 8:13, Israel figuratively appears as a fig tree doomed to bear no fruit whose leaves are going to wither (אֵין עֲנָבִים בַּגֶּפֶן וְאֵין תְּאֵנִים בַּתְּאֵנָה, וְהֶעָלֶה נָבֵל). This imagery underlies the ‘cursing of the fig tree’ (συκῆ) in the gospels: cf. Mark 11:12–26 and Matthew 21:18–22; see also the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13:6–9) as well as the parable of the budding fig tree (Mark 13:28–31; Matthew 24:32–5; Luke 21:29–33). All translations of Biblical passages come from the New International Version.

12 From the Hebrew and Aramaic root שקר, according to C. Torrey, ‘The name “Iscariot”’, HThR 36 (1943), 51–62; cf. however the criticism levelled at this etymology in J.E. Taylor, ‘The name “Iskarioth” (Iscariot)’, JBL 129 (2010), 367–83, at 375–6. After reviewing previous proposals, Taylor puts forward a new one (אִסְכַּרְיותָא), suggesting that the epithet alludes to blocking (סכר), specifically to ‘chokiness’—arguably a reference to a physical condition that the various stories about Judas’ death, whether by hanging or by some sort of stroke (Acts of the Apostles 1.18), sought to explain: cf. Taylor (this note), 379–83.

13 Cf. Deuteronomy 21:23: ‘anyone who is hung on a pole (עֵץ ‘pole’ but also ‘wood’ or ‘tree’ as in the ‘tree of life’ of Genesis 2:9, which the Septuagint translates as ξύλον) is under God’s curse’ and see e.g. Job 8:29, 10:26; 2 Samuel 4:12. Paul resorts to Deuteronomy 21:23 for his claim that Christ, through crucifixion, which is in itself a kind of hanging on a tree, ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’: cf. Galatians 3:13–14.

14 Cf. C. Linnaeus, Species plantarum (Holmiae, 1753), 1.374 ‘arbor judae’. Its bright pink buds were said to recall Judas’ blood, and the tree was believed to have the power to strike dead anyone who told a lie under its foliage: cf. e.g. Plant-Lore, s.v. Judas tree (Barsham, Suffolk, rec. May 2002: https://www.plant-lore.com/judas-tree/) and D. Watts, Dictionary of Plant Lore (London, 2007), 215.

15 Cf. Iuvencus 4.630–1 exorsusque suas laqueo sibi sumere poenas | informem rapuit ficus de uertice mortem with E. Colombi, ‘Paene ad verbum. Gli Evangeliorum libri di Giovenco tra parafrasi e commento’, Cassiodorus 3 (1997), 9–36, at 32; S. McGill, Juvencus’ Four Books of the Gospels: Evangeliorum libri quattuor (London and New York, 2016), 264; D. De Gianni, Iuvencus, Evangeliorum Liber Quartus. Introduzione, testo criticamente riveduto, traduzione e commento (Stuttgart, 2020), 366; see R.P.H. Green, Latin Epics of the New Testament. Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator (Oxford and New York, 2006), 1–134 for a profile of this poet. This passage is later cited as a source for identifying the location of this very same fig tree in Jerusalem by both Adamnan (De locis sanctis 1.17 [CCSL 175.197]) and Bede (De locis sanctis 3.1 [CCSL 175.259]). To these one should now add a sixth-century c.e. itinerary to the Holy Land (Itin. Anton. Plac. rec. A 170).

16 It exceeds the limits of this article to examine the significance of figs and fig trees in Roman myth and topography. For orientation on the ficus Ruminalis and ficus Nauia, see J. DeRose Evans, ‘The sacred figs in Rome’, Latomus 50 (1991), 798–808 and, more recently, A. Fox, Trees in Ancient Rome. Growing an Empire in the Late Republic and Early Principate (London and New York, 2023). On the presence of figs in rituals such as the nonae Caprotinae, see J.N. Bremmer and N. Horsfall, Roman Myth and Mythography (London, 1989), 76–88 (rite of reversal); cf. also N. Robertson, ‘The Nones of July and Roman weather magic’, MH 44 (1987), 8–41 for a survey of the sources, though his hypotheses are to be taken with caution.

17 M. Bettini, The Ears of Hermes. Communication, Images, and Identity in the Classical World (Columbus, 2011), 40–84 (figs are discussed at 46–50).

18 FRHist 4 F2 = Macrob. Sat. 3.20.5 (transl. S.J. Northwood). On Postumius and his works, see FRHist I.185–90.

19 LSJ s.v. φήληξ page 1925 postulate a link with φῆλος ‘deceitful’ and φηλόω ‘cheat’ that the Aristophanic scholia (n. 20 below) seem to suggest.

20 Cf. schol. Ar. Pax 1165b (page 166 Holwerda) κυρίως μὲν ὁ ἤδη σκληρὸς καὶ πάρωρος, ὄψιν μὲν πεπάνσεως ἔχων, ἄωρος δὲ ὤν. καὶ μήποτε φήληξ τίς ἐστιν ὁ ἀπατεὼν καὶ ψευδόμενος τῇ ὄψει εἰς βρῶσιν and Soph. fr. 731 Radt ἔστι δὲ τὸ φενακίζειν καὶ περὶ τοὺς φήληκας· Σοφοκλῆς ἐν Ἰάμβῃ· καὶ φήληκας δέ φαμεν τοὺς πλανῶντας τὴν ὄψιν ὡς πεπείρους.

21 Cf. G.B. Basile, Cunto de li Cunti, Seconna Iornata [page 278 Rak] ‘dapo’ fatto coggliere quatto fico fresche ped uno, che co la spoglia de’ pezzente, co lo cuollo de’ mpiso e co le lagreme de pottana facevano cannavola a le gente.’

22 Cf. Accius, praetextae, frr. 19–28 R3 with Bettini (n. 17), 51–8.

23 Cf. Livy 1.56; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.69.3–4; Ov. Fast. 2.713–20; Val. Max. 7.3.2 with Bettini (n. 17), 58–83, especially 64: ‘He [namely, the false fool] is like a riddle—a discourse so profound that it unites that which cannot be together and is thus close to “senselessness”.’

24 Arr. Epict. diss. 1.15.7–9. The translation comes from R. Hard, Epictetus. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford, 2014), though I changed his rendering of γνώμη as ‘mind’, probably suggested by passages such as Epictetus, Encheiridion 28, 41. R. Waterfield, The Complete Works. Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments (Chicago, 2022) adopts ‘intelligence’, yet ‘judgement’ seems to fit the context as well as Epictetus’ views on cognitive processes in general: cf. e.g. Arr. Epict. diss. 1.3.3, 1.12.7, 1.12.17; note that N.P. White, Epictetus. The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1983) translates γνώμη as ‘faculty of judgement’.

25 Albeit not strictly relevant to the issue at hand, it is worth noting that a popular saying—ἀνερίναστος εἶ—draws on the arboricultural practice known as caprification to describe ‘those who do not hold fast to what they may take’: cf. Zen. 2.23.

26 Note that Marcus Aurelius compares those who expect a fool not to err to those who expect a fig tree not to produce sap in its fruits: cf. M. Aur. Med. 12.16; this is, however, a generic adynaton: see M. Aur. Med. 4.6.

27 The same aition for this composite constellation (ἄστρον κοινόν) occurs in Eratosth. [Cat.] 41; Hyg. Poet. astr. 2.40; schol. Basil. Germ. 429–30 (page 367.1–10 Dell’Era): see M. Robinson, A Commentary on Ovid’s Fasti, Book 2 (Oxford, 2011), 198–206 and C.E. Newlands, ‘Ovid’s ravenous raven’, CJ 86 (1991), 244–55.

28 As a punishment for this lie, ravens are condemned to suffer thirst for sixty days before figs ripen: cf. Plin. HN 10.32. It is worth noting that, according to Cato, the maturation of figs also marked the terminus for the increased rations of bread dispensed to chained slaves (compediti) during harvest: cf. Cato, Agr. 56.

29 Newlands (n. 27), 249 n. 27: ‘The false words of the raven betray the source of this deception, for they are both fictitious and smeared with the source of their deceit, the figs.’ On the motif of deceiving, see C.E. Newlands, Playing with Time. Ovid and the Fasti (Ithaca and London, 1995), 158–9 and Robinson (n. 27), 204.

30 In Ov. Met. 2.531–632, the raven is punished for telling Apollo a truth about his lover that the god did not want to hear: cf. Newlands (n. 27), 253–5 with a focus on the intertextual connection.

31 Aelian’s version has the raven waiting for corn (λήϊον) to ripen instead: cf. Ael. NA 1.47.

32 A fig tree and crows appear in an elegiac couplet ascribed to Archilochus: cf. Archil. fr. 331 West, on which see A. Nicolosi, Archiloco. Elegie (Bologna, 2013), 191–7; A. Nicolosi, ‘Archilochus’ elegiac fragments: textual and exegetical notes’, in L. Swift and C. Carey (edd.), Iambus and Elegy: New Approaches (Oxford, 2016), 185–9; L. Swift, Archilochus. The Poems. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2019), 431–3; see also Phoenix fr. 2.9 Powell and Anth. Pal. 12.185. Crates compares the riches of the wealthy to fig trees on a crag: in the simile, the raven and the kite map onto typically deceitful characters such as the prostitute and the flatterer: cf. Stob. Ecl. 3.15.10 with Buchheit (n. 3), 204–10. See also the fig branches mentioned in the simile between cicadas and Athenians at Ar. Au. 40 with N. Dunbar, Aristophanes Birds (Oxford, 1998), 118: ‘but possibly Ar. … would expect at least some of his audience to do a “double take” … and connect κραδῶν with the συκοφάνται who were for Ar. such a plague in Athenian life’.

33 Cic. Diu. 2.84 cum M. Crassus exercitum Brundisii imponeret, quidam in portu caricas Cauno aduectas uendens “Cauneas” clamitabat, on which see S. Timpanaro, Cicerone, Della Divinazione (Milano, 1998), 378–9 and A.R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero De Divinatione II (Ann Arbor, 2020), 192–3.