DOI article:
Allen, Frederic D.: On Greek versification in inscriptions
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8561#0054
4o
ON GREEK VERSIFICATION IN INSCRIPTIONS.
violated. I cannot help suspecting that between the poet and the
graver stood a third person — the decipherer, perhaps, of an ill-
written manuscript — some one who knew his rhythms, but paid little
attention to the context of what he was transcribing.1
These examples will serve to show the nature of the uncertainties
which beset us, and which, after all, must not be imagined as greater
than they really are.2
My plan was to include in the examination all known metrical
inscriptions of the Hellenic epoch — that is, down to the middle of
the second century before our era. Of course it was often hard to
draw the line, and it is impossible that I should not have made some
mistakes. Where more decisive indicia were lacking, I made it a
rule to take in inscriptions which had i adscript in final syllables and
were free from traces of itacism.3
1 This person seems to have put roSe for rovSe and ab^oiv for av£oi/; the sug-
gestion accordingly obtrudes itself that he was transcribing from a fifth-century
manuscript. But I forbear to press conjecture further.
2 I am moved to lay the more stress on these uncertainties because a distin-
guished scholar, Hermann Usener, in his just published tract Altgriechischer
Versbau (Bonn, 1887), has put a number of halting inscriptional verses to a use
which seems to me exceedingly questionable. He sees in them survivals of older
and freer forms of the hexameter, — antiquities, therefore, not negligences. As
proof, for instance, of original independence of the two verse-halves (with syllaba
anceps and free anacrusis) he cites the following:
Now I am in substantial agreement with Usener's view of the early history of the
hexameter, and should gladly welcome any inscriptional confirmation of that view.
But it is impossible to assign any such significance to examples like these,
where half the irregularities depend simply on the presence of a redundant
-j or T€, and all can be paralleled by similar enormities in other parts of the
verse. Nor should we expect in the sixth and fifth centuries to find survivals of
our supposed older type of verse. The development of the hexameter was com-
plete long before Solon's time; the archaic period lay further back.
3 There were cases where a rational decision seemed impossible. So with
n. 228a and b in Kaibel's addenda (published by Wood only in minuscules).
These I deemed it safest tc omit.
'IfTTiaitvs f.i aviSriicev KdKKojvos VTrep, <pl\' 'AiroXXov
^\ou[(pay6pas p.' av4Bri\Ktv Albs yKau^wnidi ^ovpjJL
Atoy4frj[s] au^riKev AtVcr^ijAou iivs K€^[ajA.7jo[sj
£uvbv 'AOzvoSwpou re real 'AaaiTroSaSpou T(iSe fipyav
pLvap.' iftl Ylup(p)id5a 'as ouk r]Tr[i]tTTaro (pevyeiv
(= CXLI).
(= 73S).
(= 76o).
(= xcv).
(= CXLIV)
rtJSe oijua p.r,rr}p €it46r)Ke Oo.v6vtl
(= 229 a RM).
ON GREEK VERSIFICATION IN INSCRIPTIONS.
violated. I cannot help suspecting that between the poet and the
graver stood a third person — the decipherer, perhaps, of an ill-
written manuscript — some one who knew his rhythms, but paid little
attention to the context of what he was transcribing.1
These examples will serve to show the nature of the uncertainties
which beset us, and which, after all, must not be imagined as greater
than they really are.2
My plan was to include in the examination all known metrical
inscriptions of the Hellenic epoch — that is, down to the middle of
the second century before our era. Of course it was often hard to
draw the line, and it is impossible that I should not have made some
mistakes. Where more decisive indicia were lacking, I made it a
rule to take in inscriptions which had i adscript in final syllables and
were free from traces of itacism.3
1 This person seems to have put roSe for rovSe and ab^oiv for av£oi/; the sug-
gestion accordingly obtrudes itself that he was transcribing from a fifth-century
manuscript. But I forbear to press conjecture further.
2 I am moved to lay the more stress on these uncertainties because a distin-
guished scholar, Hermann Usener, in his just published tract Altgriechischer
Versbau (Bonn, 1887), has put a number of halting inscriptional verses to a use
which seems to me exceedingly questionable. He sees in them survivals of older
and freer forms of the hexameter, — antiquities, therefore, not negligences. As
proof, for instance, of original independence of the two verse-halves (with syllaba
anceps and free anacrusis) he cites the following:
Now I am in substantial agreement with Usener's view of the early history of the
hexameter, and should gladly welcome any inscriptional confirmation of that view.
But it is impossible to assign any such significance to examples like these,
where half the irregularities depend simply on the presence of a redundant
-j or T€, and all can be paralleled by similar enormities in other parts of the
verse. Nor should we expect in the sixth and fifth centuries to find survivals of
our supposed older type of verse. The development of the hexameter was com-
plete long before Solon's time; the archaic period lay further back.
3 There were cases where a rational decision seemed impossible. So with
n. 228a and b in Kaibel's addenda (published by Wood only in minuscules).
These I deemed it safest tc omit.
'IfTTiaitvs f.i aviSriicev KdKKojvos VTrep, <pl\' 'AiroXXov
^\ou[(pay6pas p.' av4Bri\Ktv Albs yKau^wnidi ^ovpjJL
Atoy4frj[s] au^riKev AtVcr^ijAou iivs K€^[ajA.7jo[sj
£uvbv 'AOzvoSwpou re real 'AaaiTroSaSpou T(iSe fipyav
pLvap.' iftl Ylup(p)id5a 'as ouk r]Tr[i]tTTaro (pevyeiv
(= CXLI).
(= 73S).
(= 76o).
(= xcv).
(= CXLIV)
rtJSe oijua p.r,rr}p €it46r)Ke Oo.v6vtl
(= 229 a RM).