Institutio Oratoria

For a large proportion of feet are formed by the connexion or separation of words, which is the reason why several different verses can be made out of the same words: for example, I remember that a poet of no small distinction writing the following line:

1. Astra tenet caelum, mare classes, area messem,
[*](The heaven holds the stars, the sea the fleets, and the threshing-floor the harvest.messem area, classes mare, caelum tenet astra is identical in scansion with the Sotadean which follows, save that it opens with a spondee instead of an anapaest. )

a line which, if the order of the words be reversed, becomes a Sotadean; again, the following Sotadean, if reversed, reads as as an iambic trimeter:

1. caput exeruit mobile pinus repelita.
[*]( The sense is uncertain. It appears to refer to a pine beam or trunk floating half-submerged. The pine-beam caught afresh put forth its nimble head. )

Feet therefore should be mixed,

while care must be taken that the majority are of a pleasing character, and that the inferior feet are lost in the surrounding crowd of their superior kindred. The nature of letters and syllables cannot be changed, but their adaptability to each other is a consideration of no small importance. Long syllables, as I have said,

carry the greater dignity and weight, while short syllables create an impression of speed: if the latter are intermixed with a few long syllables, their gait will be a run, but a gallop if they are continuous.