The tomb of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, erected around 150 BC, contains an Old Latin inscription in Saturnian metre.

Saturnian meter or verse is an old Latin and Italic poetic form, of which the principles of versification have become obscure. Only 132 complete uncontroversial verses survive. 95 literary verses and partial fragments have been preserved as quotations in later grammatical writings, as well as 37 verses in funerary or dedicatory inscriptions. The majority of literary Saturnians come from the Odysseia (more commonly known as the Odissia or Odyssia), a translation/paraphrase of Homer’s Odyssey by Livius Andronicus (ca. 3rd century B.C.), and the Bellum Poenicum, an epic on the First Punic War by Gnaeus Naevius (ca. 3rd century B.C.). A tomb is a small building (or vault) for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. ... The tomb of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, erected around 150 BC, contains an Old Latin inscription in Saturnian metre. ... Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 200s BC 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC - 150s BC - 140s BC 130s BC 120s BC 110s BC 100s BC Years: 155 BC 154 BC 153 BC 152 BC 151 BC - 150 BC - 149 BC 148 BC... The Forum inscription is one of the oldest known Latin inscriptions. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... Bust of Homer, one of the earliest European poets, in the British Museum Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... The Odyssey (Greek Ὀδυσσεία) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. ... Lucius Livius Andronicus (284-204 BC), was a Greek who became a Roman Dramatist and epic Poet, who gave Romans their first chance to read Greek classics in their own language. ... The First Punic War was fought between Carthage and the Roman Republic from 264 BC to 241 BC. It was the first of three major wars between the two powers for supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Gnaeus Naevius (c. ...

The meter was moribund by the time of the literary verses and forgotten altogether by classical times, falling out of use with the adoption of the hexameter and other Greek verse forms. Quintus Ennius is the poet who is generally credited with introducing the Greek hexameter in Latin, and dramatic meters seem to have been well on their way to domestic adoption in the works of his rough contemporary Plautus. These Greek verse forms were considered more sophisticated than the native tradition; Horace called the Saturnian horridus. Consequently, the poetry in this meter was not preserved. Cicero regretted the loss in his Brutus: Classical Latin is the language used by the principal exponents of that language in what is usually regarded as classical Latin literature. ... Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... Quintus Ennius (239 - 169 BC) was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. ... Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ... Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC), known in the English world as Horace, was the leading lyric poet in Latin. ... Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was an orator and statesman of Ancient Rome, and is generally considered the greatest Latin prose stylist. ... Brutus is a Roman cognomen used by several politicians of the Junii family, especially in the Roman Republic. ...

Atque utinam exstārent illa carmina, quae multīs saeclīs ante suam aetātem in epulīs esse cantitāta ā singulīs conuīuīs dē clārōrum uirōrum laudibus in Orīginibus scrīptum relīquit Catō.

‘I heartily wish those venerable Odes were still extant, which Cato informs us in his Antiquities, used to be sung by every guest in his turn at the homely feasts of our ancestors, many ages before, to commemorate the feats of their heroes.’

However, it has been noted that later poets like Ennius (by extension Virgil, who follows him in both time and technique) preserve something of the Saturnian aesthetic in hexameter verse. Ennius explicitly acknowledges Naevius’ poem and skill (lines 206–7 and 208–9 in the edition of Skutsch, with translations by Goldberg): Marcus Porcius Cato (Latin: M·PORCIVS·M·F·CATO) (234 - 149 BC), Roman statesman, surnamed The Censor, Sapiens, Priscus, or Major (the Elder), to distinguish him from Cato the Younger (his great-grandson), was born at Tusculum. ... Quintus Ennius (239 - 169 BC) was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. ... For other uses see Virgil (disambiguation). ... Gnaeus Naevius (c. ...

[...] scrīpsēre aliī rem

uorsibus quōs ōlim Faunei uātesque canēbant

‘[...] Others have given an account

in rhythms which the Fauns and seers sang.’

nam neque Mūsārum scopulōs ēscendit ad altōs

nec dictī studiōsus fuit Rōmānus homō ante hunc.

‘For no Roman scaled the Muses’ lofty crags

or was careful with his speech before this man.’

Ancient grammarians sought to derive the verse from a Greek model, in which syllable weight or the arrangement of light and heavy syllables was the governing principle. Scholars today remain divided between two approaches: In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. ...

1. The meter was quantitative (but not borrowed from Greek).
2. The meter was accentual or based on accented and unaccented syllables.

Despite the division, there is some consensus regarding aspects of the verse’s structure. A Saturnian line can be divided into two cola or half-lines, separated by a central caesura. The second colon is shorter than or as long as the first. Furthermore, in any half-line with seven or more syllables, the last three or four are preceded by word-end. This is known as Korsch’s caesura or the caesura Korschiana, after its discoverer. A quantitative property can be meaningfully measured using numbers; properties which arent quantitative are called qualitative. ... Accent in poetry refers to the stressed portion of a word. ... A cæsura, in prosody, is an audible pause that breaks up a long line of verse. ...

The Saturnian as Quantitative

Most—but not all—Saturnians can be captured by the following scheme:

• ∪ = light syllable
• – = heavy syllable
• ∪∪ = two light syllables that occupy the space of one heavy
• || = caesura
• ∪ over – (x at verse-end) = position can be occupied by either light or heavy syllable
• ∪∪ over – over ∪ = position can be occupied by any of the three

Examples

Numeration of literary fragments is according to Warmington’s edition; translations are also by Warmington (see bibliography infra). The translation of the Scipionic epitaph is by Dan Diffendale.

(1) Livius Andronicus, Odissia fragment 1

Virum mihī Camēna īnsece uersūtum

∪ – ∪ – || ∪ – ∪ || – ∪ ∪ – – x

‘Tell me, O Goddess of song, of the clever man’

(2) Naevius, Bellum Poenicum fragments 2–4

Postquam auem aspexit in templō Anchīsa

sacr(ā) in mēnsā Penātium ordine pōnuntur

immolābat auream uictimam pulchram

– ∪ ∪ ∪ || – – ∪ || – – – – – x

∪ – – – || ∪ – (∪) – || – ∪ – – – x

– ∪ – – || – ∪ – || – ∪ – – x

’After Anchises had seen a bird within the range of view,

hallowed offerings were set in a row on the table of the Household Gods;

and he busied himself in sacrificing a beautiul golden victim.’

(3) Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (ca. 270–150 B.C.) The tomb of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, erected around 150 BC, contains an Old Latin inscription in Saturnian metre. ...

                         GNAIVOD·PATRE

PROGNATVS·FORTIS·VIR·SAPIENSQVE—QVOIVS·FORMA·VIRTVTEI·PARISVMA

FVIT—CONSOL CENSOR·AIDILIS·QVEI·FVIT·APVD·VOS—TAVRASIA·CISAVNA

SAMNIO·CEPIT—SVBIGIT·OMNE·LOVCANA·OPSIDESQVE·ABDOVCIT

In regularized orthography (note the punctuation on the stone, viz. — = verse-end):

Gnaeuō patre / prōgnātus, fortis uir sapiēnsque

cuius fōrma uirtūtī parissuma / fuit

cōnsul, cēnsor, aedīlis quī fuit apud uōs

Taurāsiam, Cisaunam, / Samnium cēpit

subigit omnem Lūcānam, opsidēsque abdūcit.

– – ∪ ∪ || – – – || – – – || ∪ ∪ – x

– ∪* – ∪ || – – – || ∪ – ∪ ∪ ∪ x

– – – ∪† || – – ∪* || – ∪ ∪† ∪ –** x

– – ∪ – || ∪ – – || – ∪ – – x

∪∪ ∪ – – || – – ∪ || – ∪ – ∪ || – – x

* As in early Latin poetry, if not – as in later.

** Some early Latin poetry treats this as ∪.

† This syllable is historically –.

‘Sprung from Gnaeus his father, a man strong and wise,

whose appearance was most in keeping with his virtue,

who was consul, censor, and aedile among you,

he captured Taurasia, Cisauna, Samnium,

he subdued all Lucania and led off hostages.’

The Saturnian as Accentual

W.M. Lindsay formalizes the accentual scheme of the Saturnian as follows:

• ´ = accented syllable
• ∪ = unaccented

Handbooks otherwise schematize the verse as 3+ || 2+ stresses. This theory assumes Classical Latin accentuation. However, there is reason to believe that the Old Latin accent may have played a role in the verse. It should be noted that Lindsay himself later abandoned his theory.

Examples

Here are the same texts from above, scanned accentually.

(4) Livius Andronicus, Odissia fragment 1

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ ∪ (Old Latin)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ (Classical Latin)

(5) Naevius, Bellum Poenicum fragments 2–4

(Old Latin)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ ´ ∪ ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ (∪) ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ ∪

´ ∪ ` ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

(Classical Latin)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ (∪) ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

` ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

(6) Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus

(Old Latin)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ´ || ´ ∪ ` ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ´ ∪ ´ ∪ ´

´ ∪ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ || ´ ∪ ` ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪

(Classical Latin)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ´ || ` ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ´ ∪ ´ ∪ ´

∪ ´ ∪ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪

´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ` ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪

The Saturnian in Non-Latin Italic

Despite the obscurity of the principles of Saturnian versification in Latin, scholars have nonetheless attempted to extend analysis to other languages of ancient Italy related to Latin. The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ...

(7) Faliscan (two nearly identical inscriptions on cups from Civita Castellana, 4th century B.C.) Falisci, a tribe of Sabine origin or connections, but speaking a dialect closely akin to Latin, who inhabited the town of Falerii, as well as a considerable tract of the surrounding country, probably reaching as far south as to include the small town of Capena. ...

FOIED·VINO·(PI)PAFO·CRA·CAREFO

In Latin orthography:

foiiēd uīnom (pi)pafō. crā(s) carēfō.

– – – – (||) ∪ (∪) – || – ∪ – x (Quantitative)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ (||) ´ (∪) ∪ || ´ ∪ ´ ∪ (Accentual)

‘Today, I shall drink wine. Tomorrow, I shall go without.’

(8) Oscan (one of several similar inscriptions in Etruscoid script on vessels from Teano, 3rd century B.C.) The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. ... Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European and includes Umbrian, Latin and Faliscan. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South... Teano (Roman Teanum Sidicinum), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 21 miles north-west of that town on the main line to Rome from Naples, forming conjointly with Calvi an episcopal see. ...

minis:beriis:anei:upsatuh:sent:tiianei*

* Sabellian inscriptional texts in native orthography are conventionally transcribed in bold-face minuscule, and those in the Latin script italicized.

In Latin orthography:

Minis Beris ā(n)nei opsātō sent Teānei.

(scansion of first three words uncertain) || – – – – || ∪ – x (Quantitative)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ – ∪ – || ∪ – ∪ (Accentual)

‘ (these) were made at Teanum in Minius Berius’ (workshop?).’ (meaning of anei uncertain)

(9) Umbrian (inscription on a bronze plate from Plestia, 4th century B.C.) The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... Umbrian, an Indo-European language of the Italic family, is a dead language formerly spoken in Umbria, Italy. ...

cupras matres pletinas sacrụ [esu]**

** In epigraphy, graphemes transcribed with an underdot are of uncertain reading, and restorations are enclosed in square brackets.

In Latin orthography:

Cuprās Mātris Plestīnās sacrum esum.

∪ – – – || – – – || ∪ ∪ ∪ x (Quantitative)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ∪ ´ ∪ (Accentual)

‘I am a sacred object of Mother Cupra from Plestia.’ (Cupra was a Sabine goddess)

(10) Paelignian (final verse in an inscription on a stone from Corfinium, 1st century B.C.) Epigraphy (Greek, επιγραφή - written upon) is the study of inscriptions engraved into stone or other permanent materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. ... Sabine (in Latin and in Italian, Sabina) is a sub-region of Latium, Italy, on the North-East of Rome toward Rieti. ... The Paeligni were a people of ancient Italy, first mentioned as a member of a confederacy which included the Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini, with which the Romans came into conflict in the second Samnite War, 325 BC. On the submission of the Samnites they all came into alliance with Rome...

lifar dida uus deti hanustu herentas

In Latin orthography:

Līfar dida(t) uūs deti hanustō herentās.

– – ∪ – || – (scansion of deti uncertain) || ∪ – – ∪ – x (Quantitative)

´ ∪ ´ ∪ || ´ ´ ∪ || ∪ ´ ∪ ∪ ´ ∪ (Accentual)

‘May Liber grant you ... (good?) will ....’ (meanings of deti and hanustu unknown)

Bacchus by Caravaggio The god Dionysus is occasionally confused with one of several historical figures named Dionysius, a theophoric name that simply means [servant] of Dionysus. ...

Prehistory of the Saturnian

A large number of the verses have a 4 || 3 || 3 || 3 syllable count and division, which scholars have been inclined to take as underlying or ideal. This has permitted comparison with meters from related Indo-European poetic traditions outside Italic, such as Celtic, and a few scholars have tried to trace the verse back to Proto-Indo-European. John Vigorita derived the 4 || 3 || 5-6 syllable Saturnian from: The word Celtic can refer to: the European Celtic people, ancient or modern the Celtic languages, spoken by these people and their modern descendents the Celtic (Lusitania), Celts from the Alentejo. ... The Proto-Indo-Europeans are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, a prehistoric people of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. ...

a Proto-Indo-European 7- or 8-syllable line combined with a shorter 5- or 6-syllable line, which is itself derivable from the octosyllable by undoing truncations (noted in metrical schemes by one or more ^’s, wherever in the meter the truncation has occurred).

M.L. West schematized this subset of verses as:

which he then traces to two Proto-Indo-European octosyllables:

one giving the Saturnian’s heptasyllabic half-line by acephaly (truncation of line-beginning), the other yielding the hexasyllabic colon both by acephaly and catalexis (truncation of line-end). Ultimately, owing to the difficulties of describing and analyzing the Saturnian synchronically, attempts at reconstruction have not won acceptance. Synchronic study is the study of language at a particular point in time. ...

References

In English, two collections of the texts are available. Warmington’s Loeb contains Livius Andronicus and Naevius’ Saturnians, among other poetry and poets, and Courtney’s anthology with commentary includes the Scipionic epitaphs and other inscriptions. Regarding the meter, the standard quantitative treatment is still Cole. The details of the accentual approach are set out in Lindsay. A new proposal that draws from Generative Linguistics has recently been put forward by Parsons (currently under follow-up investigation by Angelo Mercado, whose analysis is available on line). No recent treatment of non-Latin Italic material is available in English; see Costa, Morelli, and Poccetti. Vigorita and West discuss the Saturnian and its prehistory in connection with the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European meter. Goldberg’s book is an excellent treatment of the development of Roman epic from Livius Andronicus to Ennius to Virgil. The standard edition of Ennius’ Annales is that of Skutsch. Transformational grammar is a broad term describing grammars (almost exclusively those of natural languages) which have been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study(the more accurate term is linguistician but it is too much of a tongue-twister to become generally accepted. ...

• Cole, Thomas. “The Saturnian Verse.” Yale Classical Studies 21 (1969): 3–73.
• Costa, Gabriele. Sulla preistoria della tradizione poetica italica [On the Prehistory of the Italic Poetic Tradition]. Florence: Olschki, 1998.
• Courtney, Edward. MUSA LAPIDARIA: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1995.
• Goldberg, Sander. Epic in Republican Rome. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Lindsay, W.M. “The Saturnian Meter. Second Paper.” American Journal of Philology 14.3 (1893): 305–334.
• Morelli, Giussepe. “Un antico saturnio popolare falisco” [“An Ancient Popular Faliscan Saturnian”]. Archeologia Classica 25–26 (1973–74): 440–52.
• Parsons, Jed. “A New Approach to the Saturnian Verse and Its Relation to Latin Prosody.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 129 (1999): 117–137.
• Poccetti, Paolo. “Elementi culturali negli epitafi poetici peligni. III: La struttura metrica” [“Cultural Elements in the Paelignian Poetic Epitaphs. III: Metrical Structure”]. ΑΙΩΝ [AIŌN] 4 (1982): 213–36.
• Poccetti, Paolo. “Eine Spur des saturnisches Verses im Oskischen” [“A Trace of the Saturnian Verse in Oscan”]. Glotta 61 (1983): 207–17.
• Skutsch, Otto, ed. The Annals of Quintus Ennius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
• Vigorita, John. Indo-European Comparative Metrics. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles, 1973.
• Warmington, E.H. Remains of Old Latin. Volume 2. Loeb Classical Library 314. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936.
• West, M.L. “Indo-European Metre.” Glotta 51 (1973): 161–187.