What’s Latin about Latin Versification or Why Asclepiads Aren’t Boring: A Case Study of Accent and Meter in Horatian Lyric

Abstract

This article explores Horatian versification, specifically the variable rhythms of the Latin word accent within the flow of a fixed meter. After outlining the prominence of asclepiadean forms in Horatian lyric, ancient and modern scansions of the common 12-syllable asclepiad (a.k.a., lesser asclepiadean), and the distribution of word accents therein, this article considers Horace’s lively exploitation of accentual pattern and variation in the four asclepiadean poems of the “parade odes,” culminating in some rare and rhetorically expressive accents in 1.6. A consequence is a generous sense of rhythm in Horace’s versification, with an occasional concatenation of sound and sense.