In a recent article on Plutarch's style in the Marius, T. F. Carney, asserting Plutarch's ‘ability to orchestrate the action of a passage in the words used to express that action’, quotes 37.1
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and states that this is an all but complete Iambic Septenarius or Octonarius. How far does it fall short? δρῶσιν ἱππέων will occupy not the first 1½ metra of the line but the second ½ metron and the next metron, as the two long syllables of ἵλην cannot occupy the second half of a metron. The next 1½ metra, then, are ἵλην πρόσωθεν ἐλαύν-. Here we must stop, as the remainder of ἐλαύνοντας cannot stand in the second half of a metron, –οντ– being long. Altogether, then, we have ½ metron followed by 2½ metra, with -οντας excluded. In fact, it would be better not to think of a Septenarius or Octonarius and to be content with saying that the quoted words show a strong iambic rhythm. Or we might say that an iambic passage
is immediately followed by another iambic passage ![](//static.cambridge.org/binary/version/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20151017091551877-0020:S0075426900075972_inline4.gif?pub-status=live)