Grammatici Latini, VI. Scriptores artis metricae. Marius Victorinus, Maximus Victorinus, Caesius Bassus etc., ex recensione H. Keilii, Hildesheim 1961, 639, 14-640, 11 (reprografischer Nachdruck der Ausgabe Leipzig 1874)

The codex of Sankt-Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 876 (S) is the unique witness for the texts edited by Keil in the Fragmenta Sangallensia (for a description of the codex and its contents, Holtz 1981, De Paolis 2003, Romanini 2007, CXXXVII-CXXXIX; the manuscript is available through the link http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/it/list/one/csg/0876). Probably copied at St. Gall at the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the next, this manuscript was the result of the union of more contemporary grammatical collections, or fragments thereof, which occurred in the same St Gall scriptorium in the first years of the ninth century (Holtz 1981, 365). Holtz distinguished four sections of texts there: the first, second, and fourth contain all the works of Donatus or writings connected to them, while the third (pp. 129-284) is a collection of more and less ancient texts on prosody and metre, from Mallius Theodorus to Bede. In this third section, which spans pages 137-144, the Fragmenta Sangallensia appear under the title De scansione heroyci versus et specia eorum. The Fragmentum Berolinese de speciebus hexametri heroici is inserted between the two sections de scansione heroici versus and de iambico trimetro, though it is mutilated at the end. In GL VI 634, 10-636, 23 it is edited by Keil based on the Berlin codex, Staatsbibl. Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Dietz B. Sant. 66.

We do not possess information on the author of the fragment; because he attributes some passages of Aelius Festus Aphthonius to Victorinus (GL VI 104.9-13 and 107.10-11), we can only assert that he wrote in a period after the materials on meter attributed to Aphthonius were united with the ars of Marius Victorinus — this merging occurred before the end of the fifth century, as is demonstrated by the quotation in Rufinus, GL VI 554-578.

The text simplifies, to didactic ends, the teaching of Aphthonius’ third book, GL VI 104.9-13, and 107.4-109, 28. Pentameter, on whose origin ancient scholarship does not agree, is explained as verse derived through detractio from hexameter, with the repetition of two dactyls and a half foot; its four types follow, namely the ways in which it can be read, depending on the sequence of dactyls and spondees in the first two feet; the spondee in the third foot and the two final anapests remain constant. The metric rules expressed therein are ancient: there is already a trace of the preferred scansion in Quintilian, IX 4.98, and it is noted in Terentianus Maurus, 1757-1766, in which we also find the description of pentameter as a verse formed out of the repetition of a caesura in hexameter (vv. 1721-1727).

The examples demonstrate a certain originality on the part of the anonymous author: there are exempla ficta, and classic verses from Horace and Virgil are used in a new context, in comparison to how they appear in other treatises. In both this aspect and the reworking of Aphthonius, this passage displays similarities to the previous chapter de iambico trimetro and the subsequent de epodo octosyllabo.

It should be pointed out that in the St. Gall codex, the final section of the previous fragment de scansione heroici versus is also dedicated to the scansion of pentameter; here, however, the analysis focuses on different matters: it does not mention the rule that the end of each colon coincides with the end of a word (on which, cf. Quint. IX, 4.98 and Ter. Maur. 1785-1792), or the interpretation of pentameter as verse whose fifth meter derives from the union of the two final half-feet of each caesura. (cf. Ter. Maur. 1753-1756 and Aphth. GL VI 109.29-110.2). [M. Callipo, tr. C. Belanger]