Θρηκην περασα´ντες μογις πολλῳ πονῳ.
Δυοιν γεροντοι´ν δε στρατηγειται φυγη.
These are facts which may be verified either by referring to the tragedians, or by constructing senarii like the lines last quoted. The only difficulty that occurs arises in determining, in a dead language like the Greek, the absence or presence of the arsis. In this matter the writer had satisfied himself of the truth of the two following propositions:—1. That the accentuation of the grammarians denotes some modification of pronunciation other than that which constitutes the difference between Aúgust and augúst; since, if it were not so, the word ἄγγελον would be sounded like mérrily, and the word ἀγγέλων like disáble; which is improbable, 2. That the arsis lies upon radical rather than inflectional syllables, and out of two inflectional syllables upon the first rather than the second; as βλε´π-ω, βλεψ-α´σ-α, not βλεπ-ω´, βλεψ-ασ-α´. The evidence upon these points is derived from the structure of language in general. The onus probandi lies with the author who presumes an arsis (accent in the English sense) on a non-radical syllable. Doubts, however, as to the pronunciation of certain words, leave the precise number of lines violating the rule given above undetermined. It is considered sufficient to show that wherever they occur the iambic character is violated.
The circumstance, however, of the last half of the third foot requiring an arsis, brings us only half way towards the doctrine of the cæsura. With this must be combined a second fact, arising out of the constitution of the Greek language in respect to its accent. In accordance with the views just exhibited, the author conceives that no Greek word has an arsis upon the last syllable, except in the three following cases:—
1. Monosyllables, not enclitic; as σφω´ν, πα´ς, χθω´ν, δμω´ς, νω´ν, νυ´ν, &c.
2. Circumflex futures; as νεμω´, τεμω´, &c.
3. Words abbreviated by apocope; in which case the penultimate is converted into a final syllable; δω´μ', φειδεσ´θ', κεντει´τ', εγω´γ', &c.
Now the fact of a syllable with an arsis being, in Greek, rarely final, taken along with that of the sixth syllable requiring, in the senarius, an arsis, gives as a matter of necessity, the circumstance that, in the Greek drama, the sixth syllable shall occur anywhere rather than at the end of a word; and this is only another way of saying, that, in a tragic senarius, the syllable in question shall generally be followed by other syllables in the same word. All this the author considers as so truly a matter of necessity, that the objection to his view of the Greek cæsura must lie either against his idea of the nature of the accents, or nowhere; since, that being admitted, the rest follows of course.
As the sixth syllable must not be final, it must be followed in the same word by one syllable, or by more than one.
1. The sixth syllable followed by one syllable in the same word.—This is only another name for the seventh syllable occurring at the end of a word, and it gives at once the hepthimimer cæsura: as