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The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius: Book VI
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[15arg] That Marcus Varro in heroic verse noted a matter demanding very minute and careful observation.
IN the long lines called hexameters, and likewise in senarii, 1 students of metric have observed that the first two feet, and also the last two, may consist each of a single part of speech, but that those between may not, but are always formed of words which are either divided, or combined and run together. 2 Varro in his book On the Arts 3 wrote that he had observed in hexameter verse that the fifth half-foot always ends a word, 4 and that the first five half-feet are of equally great importance in making a verse with the following seven; and he argues that this happens in accordance with a certain geometrical ratio.
1 See note on iv. 5. 6 (vol. i, p. 328).
2 That is, the first two feet and the last two may consist of undivided words, but the third and fourth are formed either of words which are divided, or of parts of different words. But that this rule is not invariable was shown by Muretus, Variae Lectiones, xi. 6.
3 Fr. 116, G. and S.
4 That is, there is a caesura in the fifth foot, according to Varro.
The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.
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