Prosody (Latin) were felt to be especially suited to this role. The Greek poet Archilochus was one of the main exponents of the iambic distich and he provided a model for Horace's Epodes 1-10. The following couplet forms the first two lines of Epode 7. Note that the first syllables in both lines ("Quo" and "ap") are in anceps and thus a spondee appears to have been substituted for an iamb in both the initial feet. Also "ti" in "scelesti" is long by nature and it too is in anceps; the third foot would otherwise be a tribrach (uuu) thanks to the
Carmen Priami literary historian Gian Biagio Conte, "could only be to lend substance to some intuition of primitive preliterary epic composition." The poem is among the "countertendencies" in Latin literature that reveal Roman ambivalence toward the adoption of Greek culture. Carmen Priami The Carmen Priami ("Priam's Song") is a lost Latin poem known from the quotation of a single line by Varro. The unknown poet, "a remarkable reactionary," rejects the Hellenizing trend in Latin poetry led by Ennius ("ca." 239–169 BC) and adopts a deliberately archaic style, invoking the Camenae: The invocation of the Muse is a convention of Greco-Roman poetry, and