The quantity of syllables and the inflexions of words were so far unsettled, that such lines as the following are read,
Partem fuisset de summis rebu' regendis;
and this,
Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem;
and
Volturus in spinis miserum mandebat homonem.
Among the ruder characteristics of his diction, his use of prosaic and technical terms is especially to be noticed. The following lines, for instance, read more like the bare statement of a chronicle, or of a legal document, than an extract from a poetical narrative:—
Cives Romani tunc facti sunt Campani;
and this
Appius indixit Karthaginiensibu' bellum;