Library › Latin: Grammar & Reference › Genera Versuum
A single sentence listing the kinds of verse, printed by Giuseppe Morelli in the appendix to his edition of Caesius Bassus. It names nine genera: the epic or dactylic, the iambic, trochaic, anapaestic, antispastic and choriambic, the two ionics — ‘from the greater’ and ‘from the lesser’ — the latter suited to the rhythm of pipers, and the paeonic.
The list reflects the system of nine basic metres used by Greek and Latin metricians from the imperial period onward, in which every verse was traced to one of a small number of primary types. Brief as it is, it summarises the framework within which Latin poetry was analysed in the schools.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from digilibLT, the Digital Library of Late-Antique Latin Texts (edition: G. Morelli (a cura di), Caesii Bassi De metris. Atilii Fortunatiani De metris Horatianis. I. Introduzione, testo critico e appendice, Hildesheim, Weidmann,…), licensed CC BY-NC. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.