> Palindromes date back at least to 79 AD, as a palindrome was found as a graffito at Herculaneum, a city buried by ash in that year. This palindrome, called the Sator Square, consists of a sentence written in Latin: “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas” (”The sower Arepo holds with effort the wheels”).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome#History
“T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang eminating, is sad. I’d assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.”
- Brendan Gill, “Here at the New Yorker”, 1976