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Obschon der römische Hexameter in vielen Aspekten gründlich untersucht scheint, fehlt es zum einen noch an einer datenbasierten Grundlegung in einigen Bereichen, zum anderen sind manche Fragen, denen man sich inzwischen durch statistische Methoden nähern kann, noch nicht diskutiert worden. Die vorliegende Untersuchung behandelt u. a. die Fragen, wo im Hexameter Wortgrenzen anzunehmen sind – auch im Zusammenhang mit Verschleifungen –, welche Besonderheiten in Verbindung mit Interpunktionen auftreten, wie Daktylen und Spondeen verteilt sind und wie sich die einzelnen Metren dabei gegenseitig beeinflussen, wie Zäsuren mit anderen Phänomenen im Hexameter wechselwirken und inwiefern der Aufbau der vorderen und der hinteren Hälften des Hexameters voneinander abhängen.Zudem wird eine Methode vorgestellt, den verstechnischen Stil von Texten quantitativ zu bestimmen und so die Ähnlichkeit von Texten bzw. Autoren sichtbar zu machen. So lassen sich – vom Inhalt abstrahierend – verschiedene Autoren zueinander in Beziehung setzen. Klassischen Philologen, die auch mithilfe metrischer Eigenheiten interpretieren, bietet das Buch einen frischen Blick auf Grundlagen und fortgeschrittene Fragen zum römischen Hexameterbau.

In Hexametrical Genres from Homer to Theocritus, Christopher Faraone discusses a number of short hexametrical genres such as oracles, incantations and laments that do not easily fit the generic models provided by the extant poetry of Hesiod and Homer. In the process, he gives us new insight into their ritual performance, their early history, and how poets from Homer to Theocritus embedded or imitated these genres to enrich their own hexametrical poems--by playing with and sometimes overturning the generic expectations of their audiences or readers. Christopher Faraone combines literary and ritual studies to produce a rich and detailed picture of hexametrical genres performed publicly for gods, such as hymns or laments for Adonis, or other that were performed more privately, such as epithalamia, oracles, or incantations. This volume deals primarily with the recovery of lost or under-appreciated hexametrical genres, which are often left out of modern taxonomies of archaic hexametrical poetry, either because they survive only in fragments or because the earliest evidence for them dates to the classical period.

Originally published in 1903. Samuel Edward Winbolt (1868-1944) spent his entire working life from 1892 to 1926 teaching classics at his old school, Christ's Hospital. In his later years, he was best known for his work on Romano-British history and archaeology; but Latin Hexameter Verse, published in 1903, is the book by which he deserves to be remembered and which has earned him his place in the history of classical scholarship. Its subtitle and its stated aim of offering'help to fifth and sixth forms, and undergraduates at universities'belie its true and continuing importance. Winbolt's detailed, sensitive and copiously illustrated analysis of the technique of Latin verse-writing still provides the most accessible and illuminating guide to a just appreciation of the craftsmanship which went to the formation of the Latin hexameter,'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man'.

Achilles inflicts countless agonies on the Achaeans, although he is supposed to be fighting on their side. Odysseus'return causes civil strife on Ithaca. The Iliad and the Odyssey depict conflict where consensus should reign, as do the other major poems of the early Greek hexameter tradition: Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymns describe divine clashes that unbalance the cosmos; Hesiod's Works and Days stems from a quarrel between brothers. These early Greek poems generated consensus among audiences: the reason why they reached us is that people agreed on their value. This volume, accordingly, explores conflict and consensus from a dual perspective: as thematic concerns in the poems, and as forces shaping their early reception. It sheds new light on poetics and metapoetics, internal and external audiences, competition inside the narrative and competing narratives, local and Panhellenic traditions, narrative closure and the making of canonical literature.