Dactylic Hexameter - Virgil and The Augustan Poets

Virgil and The Augustan Poets

By the age of Augustus, poets like Virgil closely followed the rules of the meter and approached it in a highly rhetorical way, looking for effects that can be exploited in skilled recitation. For example, the following line from the Aeneid (VIII.596) describes the movement of rushing horses and how "a hoof shakes the crumbling field with a galloping sound":

quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum

This line is made up of five dactyls and a closing spondee, an unusual rhythmic arrangement that imitates the described action. A similar effect is found in VIII.452, where Virgil describes how the blacksmith sons of Vulcan "take up their arms with great strength one to another" in forging Aeneas' shield:

illi inter sese multa ui bracchia tollunt

The line consists of all spondees except for the usual dactyl in the fifth foot, and is meant to mimic the pounding sound of the work. A third example that mixes the two effects comes from I.42, where Juno pouts that Athena was allowed to use Jove's thunderbolts to destroy Ajax ("she hurled Jove's quick fire from the clouds"):

Ipsa Jovis rapidum jaculata e nubibus ignem

This line is nearly all dactyls except for the spondee at -lata e. This change in rhythm paired with the harsh elision is intended to emphasize the crash of Athena's thunderbolt.

Virgil will occasionally deviate from the strict rules of the meter to produce a special effect. One example from I.105 describing a ship at sea during a storm has Virgil violating metrical standards to place a single-syllable word at the end of the line:

...et undis

dat latus; insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons.

The boat "gives its side to the waves; there comes next in a heap a steep mountain of water." By placing the monosyllable mons at the end of the line, Virgil interrupts the usual "shave and a haircut" pattern to produce a jarring rhythm, an effect that echoes the crash of a large wave against the side of a ship.

One final, amusing example that comments on the importance Roman poets placed on their verse rules comes from the Ars Poetica of Horace, line 263:

Non quivis videt inmodulata poemata iudex,

The line, which lacks a proper caesura, is translated "Not every critic sees an inharmonious verse."