LATIN INSCRIPTION AT CIRTA. 383 



long, the accent was almost invariably upon it. This alone would often according to the 

 nature of the verse cause either an agreement or disagreement between ictus and accent. 



Thus in the old Saturnian verse it is difficult to avoid a frequent coincidence between the 

 two, at the end of the first half, and throughout the whole of the second half of the verse. 

 But this coincidence certainly was not sought. Take the often quoted line, as simple a form 

 as you can have of the verse, 



Dabunt malum Metelli — Naevio poetae. 



In the two first feet ictus and accent disagree ; in the next from the nature of the Latin accent 

 they agree. Take again this line from the tomb of the Scipios, 



Cosol Cesor Aidilis — qui fult apud vos. 



Here, as qui and apud are atonic, it happens that five times accent and ictus disagree, and 

 only once coincide. And so in many others of the best known verses, especially in those of 

 the great master of the Saturnian metre, Naivius, the poet would appear almost unconsciously 

 to have striven against the coincidence of the two. 



Immortales mortales — si foret fas flere 

 Flerent divae Camenae — Naevium poetam. 



In the first of these verses, since si is probably atonic, we have four contradictions, only two 

 agreements between ictus and accent. Yet had the words been thus arranged : JEdilis Consul 

 Censor etc. and Mortales immortales etc., coincidences would have been much more numerous. 



Let us now examine the hexameter and iambic. 



With that unerring instinct which never failed them the old Greeks at a particular stage 

 in the development of their language invented the heroic hexameter, the noblest and most 

 perfect metre of the noblest and most perfect of languages. In that verse, for some reason or 

 other which every one can feel, but I for one cannot explain, the caesura was the central force 

 which bound the two parts together, gave to them all their beauty and significance, and allowed 

 an almost infinite variety of rhythm; by the judicious application of which poems of any length 

 might be constructed without their ever palling or wearying the reader. Without this caesura 

 the verse would be an inorganical unrhythmical mass. As the language changed its forms, the 

 different dialects developed diiferent forms of verse, all exquisite in their kind. In Athens the 

 drama occupied the place that the old epic had filled in Ionia : and as suitable alike to it and 

 the dialect in which it was written, the iambic senarius was happily selected as the principal metre. 

 In this verse too the caesura is the central force which gives it a variety of cadence, almost rival- 

 ling the heroic, and rendering it equally suitable for long poems. On the whole therefore, though 

 it is inferior in sweetness to some of the lyric metres, it may be looked upon as only second to 

 the hexameter. Considering the nature of the Greek accent, any influence of it upon these or 

 other Greek metres is quite out of the question. It is only an Eustathius, living when the 

 language was prostrate, who could suggest that the second syllable of A'lokov, which he met 

 with in his Homer, was long on account of its accent, never asking himself, why he did not 

 find AioXff) the dative so used, and ignorant that Homer really gave the form Aioko^o, another 

 form of A'loKoio; and that av€\^iov is used with the same quantity. 



From the Greeks the Latins borrowed these two metres, and feeling that the right obicr- 

 VoL. X. Part II. 49 



