LATIN INSCRIPTION AT CIRTA. 389 



satiust, fit nisi caveas : where there is a resolution of the arsis in the first syllable of the last 

 foot. Ceciderunt occurs as a molossus in the middle of another verse. In the Titulus 

 Mummianus, another very old specimen of hexameters, three out of six verses have not the 

 usual cadence of later times ; and we meet with one resolution of the arsis facilia for the 

 dactyl of the fifth foot. 



In Virgil, to take the most perfect master, the caesura of the verse occasions generally a 

 contradiction, the conclusion an agreement between accent and ictus. The other feet of 

 equally harmonious verses may have them either altogether agreeing or altogether disagreeing. 



'Arma virumque c4no Trojae qui primus ab oris 

 'Italiam fdto profugus Lavinaque venit 



In the first of these verses we have this agreement in four out of six feet; and had he written 

 qui Trojae, as Lucretius or Catullus would probably have done, there would have been this 

 coincidence in five out of six places. In the second verse we find a disagreement five out of 

 six times. Yet the two verses are equally good. Nay we find in the best Latin poets 

 many lines where accent and ictus agree throughout, as in the following from Virgil : 



Pallida, dis invisa superque immane barathrum. 

 Non potuisse tuaque animam hanc effundere dextra. 

 Hunc congressus et hunc, ilium eminus, eminus ambo. 

 Esto nunc sol testis et haec mihi terra vocanti. 

 Do quod vis et me victusque volensque remitto. 



In Catullus we meet with 



I Omnia sunt deserta, ostentant omnia letum. 



In Lucretius are hundreds of verses like the following : 



Quanam sit ratiohe atque alte terminus haerens. 



Impia te rationis inire elementa viamque. 



Crescit barba pilique per omnia membra per artus. 



Then with regard to disagreements between accent and ictus, we have just seen that the 

 second verse of the iEneid, a very excellent one, exhibits five such. So does the thir- 

 teenth verse: 



Carthdgo It&liam contra TiberinS,que longe Litorx ■ 



And had he chosen to write 



Carthago Itliliam longe Tiberinfique contra Litora, 



since the preposition before its noun has no accent, or, if it has one, has it on the last 

 syllable, there would not haVe been a single agreement in the whole verse between accent 

 and ictus. Or take this other verse, 



Aurunci misere pfitres Sidicinaque juxta Aequora. 

 Here we have no coincidence in the whole verse, as juxta is unaccentuated, except in the 

 third foot where there is at once agreement and opposition. Again in the following verse 

 of Lucretius, 



lUe leonis obesset et horrens Arcadius sus, 



