Prosody (Latin) long or short in some schemes to indicate natural syllable length but it is always long by position. A dactylic tetrameter catalectic is sometimes joined to the dactylic hexameter to form a couplet termed the Alcmanian Strophe, named after the lyric poet Alcman (some scholars however refer to the Alcmanian Strophe as the First Archilochian, as indeed there is a strong likeness between the two forms). Examples of the form are found in Horace's Odes ("carmina") and "Epodes", as here in his Epode 12. Note that the plosive + liquid combination pr in 'capreaeque', syllabified "ca.pre.ae.que", leaves the first open
Horace borrowed from Archaic Greece, employing hexameters in his "Satires" and "Epistles", and iambs in his "Epodes", all of which were relatively easy to adapt into Latin forms. His "Odes" featured more complex measures, including alcaics and sapphics, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. Despite these traditional metres, he presented himself as a partisan in the development of a new and sophisticated style. He was influenced in particular by Hellenistic aesthetics of brevity, elegance and polish, as modeled in the work of Callimachus. In modern literary theory, a distinction is often made between immediate personal experience