[§ 862.] 23. In the species of compound verse hitherto mentioned the base may be regarded as the smallest trochaic series, from which a transition is made to another rhythm. In other verses, however, we find a more complete trochaic series; in Horace, Carm., i., 8, before a choriambic verse of two choriambi with an iambic close. The poet has imposed on himself the restraint of using the spondee throughout instead of the second trochee. The caesura after the arsis of the first choriambus is remarkable, and cannot be considered appropriate. In the poem referred to, this verse is combined with a shorter choriambic of the kind mentioned above. Lýdia dic, per ómnes Té deós oró, Sybarin cúr properas amándo. The same trochaic dipodia before a logaoedic dactylic series produces the hendecasyllabic Sapphic verse, Persicos odi puer apparatus. The transition from iambi to dactyls may take place, if the rhythmical connexion is to be regarded, only by the iambic series being catalectic. And this is the case in the hendecasyllabic Alcaic verse, Frui paratis et valido mihi. 19 863.] Note. We may here mention the Saturnian verse, an old Roman measure, which in later times was rarely used. It consists of a dimeter iambicus catalecticus, to the thesis of which three trochees are added. The early Roman poets, however, allowed themselves many licenses in the use of this measure, and it is difficult to reduce the fragments which are here and there quoted, to the proper measure. We shall therefore quote the regular Saturnian verses, which Terentianus Maurus composed upon it as a model: ut, si vocét Camoénas | quis novém sorores nam nil obest trochaeo, longa quod suprema ast. [§ 864.] 24. This may be sufficient for the compound verses which are used by the Latin lyric poets. A poem may consist of a succession of verses of the same kind, as is usually the case with simple verses, and the choriambic among compound; or verses of different measure and rhythm are combined into a rhythmical waole, called a strophe, the single verses remaining separate (which is chiefly indicated by the doubtful syllable). In the combination of different verses into a strophe, the poet is guided by his feeling, and it is impossible to enumerate all the varieties of the strophe that may be made. Horace (whom we have here chiefly to attend to), without having any Grecian model (as it appears), formed short strophes either of choriambic verses alone, or of choriambic and Aeolic verses, of which we spoke above. It will not be found difficult to resolve these strophes into their elements. Of the more artificial Greek strophes we find in this poet the Sapphic and the Alcaic. In both he has introduced some changes, according to his own views. [§ 865.] The Sapphic strophe consists of a Sapphic hendecasyllabic verse thrice repeated, and closed with an Adonic (see § 847). Horace, instead of the syllaba anceps at the end of the trochaic dipodia, uses only a spondee, and introduces a caesura after the fifth syllable, but exchanged it sometimes for a trochaic caesura after the sixth syllable. In some of his poems (especially Carm., iv., 2) he allows himself the use of versus hypermetri; i. e., verses which with their final syllable extend by elision into the following verse; rarely, however, and chiefly with enclitics. Sometimes he unites in a singular manner the Adonic verse with the preceding hendecasyllabic; e. g., Carm., i., 2, 19, labitur ripa Jove non probante u- so that it might seem as if he regarded them both as one. The hiatus, however, is also found, and m is not elided when the following verse begins with a vowel. The former practice, therefore, is to be considered only as a license which Horace assumed after the example of Sappho. But in point of rhythm the verses are indeed so connected together that no chasm exists anywhere, but the thesis is always succeeded by the arsis.* * [Compare, however, the article Arsis in the Penny Cyclopædia, an also Key's Rejoinder to Donaldson, p. 12.]—Am. Ed. 40-200lulo Integer vitae scelerisque purus [§ 866.] The Alcaic strophe consists of the Alcaic hendecasyllabic verse twice repeated, a dimeter iambic hypercatalectic, and a logaoedic of two dactyls and two trochees. The Greek metre is the following: Horace strengthens the first three verses by spondees, making it his rule to use the long syllable in all the places in which, by the above scheme, it is allowed, with the exception of the syllaba anceps at the end of the verse, which remains anceps. The metre, therefore, according to the usage of Horace, is commonly given thus: It is, however, useful to keep the original Greek measure in view, because the Roman poet sometimes deviates from his own rule, just because it is arbitrary, using an iambus instead of the spondee at the beginning of the first three verses. (In the first verse of the strophe, i., 9, 1; 31,9; 35, 37; ii., 9, 5; in the second, i., 37, 22; ii., 1,6 ; 14, 6; 19, 22; iii., 1, 2; 1, 26; 3, 34; 5, 22; in the third, i., 35, 15; 37, 15; ii., 3, 3; iii., 29, 11; but never in the fourth book.) But he never makes use of a short syllable before the caesura, according to Bentley's remark on Carm., iii., 2, 1; compare iii., 5, 17. The caesura of the Alcaic hendecasyllabus is always observed by Horace, and is an excuse for the hiatus; Carm., ii., 20, 13. caesura, however, is sometimes made in a compound word; it very rarely (iv., 14, 17, and i., 37, 14) falls on an uncompounded word of more than two syllables. The Horace is also careful in observing the caesurae, and accordingly does not use two, or, in the third verse, three, dissyllabic words one after another at the beginning. The hiatus between several verses is not unfrequent: the third and fourth verses are sometimes united by elision; as, e. g., in the last strophe of Carm., ii., 3, Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium Versatur urnā serius ocius Sors exitura et nos in aeternum APPENDIX II. THE ROMAN CALENDAR. [§ 867.] THE Roman names of the days of the month are entirely different from our own. Without entering here upon the manner in which, in the early times, the year was divided and defined, we shall commence at once with the Julian year and its division into months. According to this, the month of February in a common year had twenty-eight days; April, June, September, and November thirty, and the others thirty-one days. The days of these months are not reckoned in an uninterrupted series, from one to thirty or thirty-one, but are calculated backward from three days, which are fixed in every month. These three days are the first, fifth, and thirteenth, which are called by their Roman names, the Calendae, Nonae, and Idus, of a month. (The names of the months, as was remarked in § 38, are used as adjectives, and as such they are joined to the three feminine names just mentioned.) In the Roman system of counting from a certain point, this point itself is included in the calculation. Thus, e. g., the third day before the nonae, i. e., before the fifth of the month, is not the second of the month, but the third. Hence we may give it as a practical rule, that in calculating the days of the month, we must add one to the number from which we deduct. When the point from which we have to count backward is the first of the month (Calendae), it is not sufficient to add one to the number of days of the current month, but the Calendae itself must also be taken into the account, i. e., the num ber of days of the current month must be increased by two before we deduct from them. Hence, dies tertius ante Cal. Julias is the 29th of June, as June has thirty days. This is the cause of the whole apparent difficulty in calculating the Roman dates. But, besides this, we have to consider another peculiarity, which is a remnant of the ancient arrangement of the Roman year, ascribed to King Numa, viz., in the months of March, May, July, and October, the Nonae fall on the 7th, and the Idus on the 15th, instead of the 5th and 13th. In leap years (i. e., according to the Roman expression, every fifth year) February has one day more, but this intercalary day was not added at the end of the month, as is the custom in modern times, but was inserted in the place where formerly the intercalary month (mensis intercalaris) had been inserted to make the lunar year of King Numa harmonize with the solar year, that is, after the 23d of February, so that the 24th of February, i. e., the sixth day before the Calendae of March, was reckoned double, and was called bis sextus or bis sextum, whence the leap year itself was called annus bis sextus. On this subject, see the classical work of Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, Berlin, 1825, in the beginning of vol. ii. [§ 868.] Respecting the grammatical form of stating the day of a month the following points must be observed. The ablative indicates the time when a thing occurs; hence we say, e. g., die tertio ante Calendas Martias, but die and ante may be omitted, and we may say tertio Calendas, or in figures iii. Cal. Cicero and Livy, however, use a different form, either exclusively, or, at least, much more commonly than others; e. g., ante diem tertium Calendas, or Nonas, Idus (abridged a. d. iii. Cal.). This peculiarity, instead of the correct die tertio ante Calendas, cannot be explained otherwise than by the supposition that ante changed its place, and that afterward the ablat. was changed into the accusat., as if it were dependent on ante, while the real accusat. Calendas remained unchanged. Pridie, the day before, and postridie, the day after, are either joined with the genitive; as, pridie ejus diei, or, in the case of established calendar names and festivals. with the accusative, to which people were more accus tomed; as, pridie Idus, pridie Compitalia, pridie natalem, postridie ludos Apollinares. |