Dactylic Hexameter - Latin Hexameter

Latin Hexameter

The hexameter came into Latin as an adaptation from Greek long after the practice of singing the epics had faded. Consequentially, the properties of the meter were learned as specific "rules" rather than as a natural result of musical expression. Also, because the Latin language generally has a higher percentage of long syllables than Greek, it is by nature more spondaic than Greek. These factors caused the Latin hexameter to take on distinct Latin characteristics.

The earliest example of the use of hexameter in Latin poetry is that of the Annales of Ennius, which established the dactylic hexameter as the standard for later Latin epic. Later Republican writers, such as Lucretius, Catullus and even Cicero, wrote their own compositions in the meter and it was at this time that many of the principles of Latin hexameter were firmly established, ones that would govern later writers such as Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Juvenal. Virgil's opening line for the Aeneid is a classic example of Latin hexameter:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris (dactyl, dactyl, spondee, spondee, dactyl, spondee)

As in Greek, lines were arranged such that the metrically long syllables—those occurring at the beginning of a foot—avoided the natural stress of a word. In the first few feet of the meter, meter and stress were expected to clash, while in the final few feet they were expected to resolve and coincide—an effect that gives each line a natural "dum-ditty-dum-dum" ("shave and a haircut") rhythm to close. Such an arrangement is a balance between an exaggerated emphasis on the metre—which would cause the verse to be sing-songy—and the need to provide some repeated rhythmic guide for skilled recitation.

In the following example of Ennius's early Latin hexameter composition, metrical weight ("ictus") falls on the first and last syllables of certabant; the ictus is therefore opposed to the natural stress on the second syllable when the word is pronouned. Similarly, the second syllable of the words urbem and Romam carry the metrical ictus even though the first is naturally stressed in typical pronunciation. In the closing feet of the line, the natural stress that falls on the third syllable of Remoramne and the second syllable of vocarent coincide with the metrical ictus and produce the characteristic "shave and a haircut" ending:

certabant urbem Romam Remoramne vocarent.

(Annales 1.86)

Like their Greek predecessors, classical Latin poets avoided a large number of word breaks at the ends of foot divisions except between the fourth and fifth, where it was encouraged. In order to preserve the rhythmic close, Latin poets avoided the placement of a single syllable or four-syllable word at the end of a line. The caesura is also handled far more strictly, with Homer's feminine caesura becoming exceedingly rare, and the second-foot caesura always paired with one in the fourth.

One example of the evolution of the Latin verse form can be seen in a comparative analysis of the use of spondees in Ennius' time vs. the Augustan age. The repeated use of the heavily spondaic line came to be frowned upon, as well as the use of a high proportion of spondees in both of the first two feet. The following lines of Ennius would not have been felt admissible by later authors since they both contain repeated spondees at the beginning of consecutive lines:

his verbis: "o gnata, tibi sunt ante ferendae

Aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet."

(Annales 1.42f)