Patterns of text layout in Pompeian verse inscriptions

This article explores patterns of formal text layout of the metrical graffiti of Pompeii. After a brief discussion of the importance of formal text layout for linguistic research in general (and its relevance for poetic texts), a representative sample of poetic graffiti is discussed and analysed in detail. It is argued, then, that nature of the surface and sentence structure in particular can take precedence over the ‘default solution’ (coincidence of verse and line structures).

Ovid, Remedia amoris 95: uerba dat omnis amor

Anagrams and syllabic wordplay of the kind championed by Frederick Ahl in his Metaformations have not always been favourably received by scholars of Latin poetry; I would hesitate to propose the following instance, were it not for the fact that its occurrence seems peculiarly apposite to the context in which it appears. That Roman poets were prepared to use such techniques to enhance the presentation of an argument by exemplifying its operation at a verbal level is demonstrated by the famous passage of Lucretius (DRN 1.907–14; also 1.891–2) in which the poet seeks to illustrate the tendency of semina … ardoris to create fire in wood by the literal presence of elements from the word for ‘fires’ (IGNes) in that denoting wood (lIGNum). A similar conception may underlie the association insinuated by the love elegists between amor and mors, suggesting that death is somehow ‘written into’ love: so Propertius declares laus in amore mori (2.1.47), while Tibullus appears to point to the lurking presence of death in the pursuit of love in the lines interea, dum fata sinunt, iungamus amores: | iam ueniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput (1.1.69–70) – so swift and unexpected is death's approach that it is already present in aMOReS in the preceding line. Ovid's awareness of the poetic potential of this kind of play (if that is the right word for it) is fully exhibited in his celebrated account of Echo and Narcissus in Metamorphoses 3, where the subject matter gives the poet ample scope to exploit the humorous and pathetic possibilities afforded by Echo's fragmented repetitions of the frustrated entreaties of her beloved.

Undying voices: the poetry of Roman Britain

An anthology (comprising introduction, text, translation, and notes) of Britain's most ancient (surviving) poetry (Latin/Greek, with an English translation).

Das vorklassische Lehrgedicht der Römer

Comprehensive overview of the remains of Early Roman didactic poetry