Archilochian


Archilochian or archilochean is a term used in the metrical analysis of Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The name is derived from Archilochus, whose poetry first uses the rhythms.

In Greek verse

In the analysis of Archaic and Classical Greek poetry, archilochean usually describes the length x – u u – u u – x – u – u – –. The alternative name erasmonideus comes from Archilochus' fr. 168 West:
As indicated, a caesura is observed before the ithyphallic ending of the verse.
The verse is also used stichically in Old Comedy, for example in Aristophanes, Wasps 1518-1537 and in Cratinus fr. 360 Kassel-Austin, where, as Hephaestion notes, no caesura is observed before the ithyphallic ending:
The verse also occurs in the choral lyric of tragedy and comedy, with the same caesura as in the example from Archilochus, as a rule.
Trichas used the name archilocheion for the trochaic trimeter catalectic, – u – x – u – x – u –, seen in Archilochus, fr. 197 West, and used stichically by Callimachus.

In Latin verse

In discussion of Horace's poetry, the Greater Archilochian verse consists of four dactyls followed after a caesura by three trochees, producing the seven-foot scheme – u u – u u – u u – u u | – u – u – –, as in the first line of Horace's Odes 1.4:
As in that ode, Archilochian verses were usually used in distichs with the iambic trimeter catalectic, in which a caesura marked off the identical ending rhythm of the two verses :
The distich's name reflects the precedent in Archilochus.
The name Archilochian is also applied to similar combinations of dactylic and trochaic rhythms elsewhere in Horace.
The minor Archilochian is equivalent to the hemiepes.