u/BaconJudge

A few months ago, I read somewhere that from Latin poetry before late antiquity there are only two extant lines of dactylic hexameter that are holospondaic, meaning that they consist entirely of spondees. (This is a much tighter constraint than being just a spondaic line, in which only the fifth foot is required to be a spondee.)

I remembered that one author was Ennius, and online searches readily produced his holospondaic line: "olli respondit rex Albai Longai." However, I can't remember the other author, and I can't reconstruct where I read this or find any similar discussion through online searching.

Catullus 116.3 almost works, until the very last syllable ("qui te lenirem nobis. Neu conarerĭs"), so now I'm wondering if the source I read hand-waved that because it's in the anceps, so the resulting line still has only twelve syllables just as a holospondaic line should, even though the last foot isn't really a spondee.

Are there any other holospondaic lines in Latin literature? I'd be interested in examples from any era, but I'm primarily wondering if what I read about the two classical lines was true. Thank you.

Think you can find 4 hidden groups of 4 related words? Puzzle by u/BaconJudge?

Think you can find 4 hidden groups of 4 related words? Puzzle by u/BaconJudge?

Holospondaic lines of Latin dactylic hexameter