A common variation in the first two feet is either ─́─ ── ── │ ─́─ ──, or ─́─ ── │ ─́─ ── ──. A somewhat rare variation in the last two is ─́─ ── ── │ ─́─ ──. In the first foot ─́─ sometimes replaces ─́─ ── (or ─́─ ── ──), no doubt owing to the greater stress at the opening of the verse.
Some exceptions (or apparent exceptions) to these rules will no doubt be found. But the rules cover most of the extant examples of saturnian verse: and it must be remembered that the text of our fragments is often not at all certain. The system outlined has, however, the merit—which it shares with Lindsay—that it dispenses with most of the alterations of the text in which other systems involve us.
The Hymn of the Arval Brotherhood.
I have given the text of this celebrated piece according to what may be called the Vulgate; and in the sub-title, in the Glossary and in my Introduction p. 1 I have followed the ordinary interpretation. I may perhaps be allowed here to suggest a different view of the poem.
It begins with an appeal to the Lares. These are apparently the Lares Consitivi, gods of sowing. Then comes an appeal to Marmar, then to Mars. Then the Semones are invoked, who, like the Lares, are gods of sowing. There follows a final appeal to Marmar.
It is pretty clear that the Mars, Marmar, or Marmor, invoked in such iteration is not the war-god, but Mars in his more ancient character of a god of agriculture. But if this be so, what are we to make of lines 7-9,
satur fu, fere Mars: limen sali: sta berber,
'Be thou glutted, fierce Mars, leap the threshold, stay thy scourge',—or, as Buecheler takes it, 'stand, wild god'? This sort of language is appropriate enough to Mars as god of war, but utterly inappropriate to the farmer's god[21].
Now it so happens that for
satur fu, fere Mars: limen sali, sta berber