Reference Edition: 

Marii Servi Honorati Centimeter, ed. M. Elice, Hildesheim 2013 (CGL 9).  

The composition of the Centimeter, which may be dated to the beginning of the 5th century, reflects the renewed interest in metric studies between the 4th and 5th centuries, as witnessed by the production of numerous texts, as sections or appendices of artes grammaticae, and as autonomous works (from Aphthonius’ impressive De metris to briefer and more schematic compilations like Mallius Theodorus’ De metris or Atilius Fortunatianus’ De metris Horatianis). This short work can be divided into three main sections:

1) The preface, containing the epistola missoria, with a dedication to Albinus and a general introduction to the treatise (consisting of the declaration of the title, argument, and fundamental basic and propaedeutic metric-prosodic concepts for the subsequent treatise on meter);

 2) the metrical treatise itself, which contains a summary of the eight metra prototypa, divided into eight corresponding chapters, followed by a chapter de dispersis, which contains asynartetic verses and some aeolic verses;

3) the epilogue, in which the author, dismissing the reader, gives him his own work, explicitly identified as a manualis libellus, a “manual” in a compendiary form. This formula — destined to have good fortune in the medieval period and beyond — nicely summarises the work’s nature and didactic goal.

The chapters in the central section include a brief description introducing the metron, in which Servius enumerates feet solutions accepted in various places of the metric sequence and sometimes related to the verses of certain literary genres. Then there is a review of the most representative verses of this genus metrorum, in ascending order from the shortest to the longest, each accompanied by a definition and an example. The size of the individual chapters varies: more space is given to the verses derived from bisyllabic and trisyllabic feet (iambic, dactylic, and anapaestic metra) than those derived from tetrasyllabic feet (choriambic, antispastic, ionic major and minor), with priority to the dactylic genus, while the most extensive chapter is that de dispersis. The total number of described verses is, as the title states, 100, a number that expresses the idea of completeness and exhaustiveness that belongs to Servius’ work.

The names of the verses derive, in most cases, from the name of the poet to whom they are traditionally connected, although in more than one case Servius is the only witness for certain names and, consequently, also the only one to attribute certain verses or metric forms to famous poets. In other cases, the name given by the grammarian to a specific verse does not have any parallels in the ancient tradition, like in the case of pancratium (for hypercatalectic trochaic monometer), threnicum (for acatalectic anapestic monometer), or panicum (for brachicatalectic antispastic trimeter).

         As for the work’s sources: this text undeniably constitutes the most complete repertory of the metra prototypa that has come down to us in the Latin language. In the first place, the structure and organisation of the material in eight chapters corresponding to the eight principle metres of the “alexandrine” metric system of Heliodorus-Hephaestion-Juba demonstrate it. Moreover, the system of describing verses as identified by their measure (from the shortest to the longest unit) and based on the quantitative interpretation offered by the four forms of depositio (hypercatalectic, brachicatalectic, catalectic, and acatalectic) gives a good confirmation of its completeness. Other hints of Servius’ heavy debt to this Alexandrine tradition are dispersed throughout the work. It is sufficient to point out the obvious similarities between the introductory section of the Centimeter and the proem of Atilius Fortunatianus’ De metris Horatianis (name and number of metra prototypa, origin and explanation of the various names), but consider also that Servius displays an unusual concordance with Hephaestion’s Enchiridion in the order in which he treats the metra prototypa (from the iambic to the ionic minor): this is in opposition to almost the entirety of the surviving Latin metricological tradition. Servius also gives Alexandrine names to some verses that were present in Greek sources or in Latin sources inspired by them: this is the case, for example, in timocreontium for the ionic dimeter in catalectic minor, encomiologicum for the asynartetic verse constituted by a dactylic penthemimer and an iambic, and iambelegum for its opposite, not to mention the sequence “valles per imas”, adopted to illustrate the smallest of the iambic verses, the hypercatalectic iambic monometer, present in various Latin sources and which can be ultimately attributed to Juba.

         Perhaps the most original and creative part of the Servian treatise is the examples illustrating the hundred described verses: these are all exempla ficta and nearly all invented by Servius, although they are evidently taken from the poetic material of other authors, especially Horace and Lucan, and as such they reflect the readings and the cultural horizons of a late antique grammarian. If the prevalent theme is mythological, there are also other sources of inspiration: history, geography, nature, and poetry. The poets whom Servius read and knew are not simply evoked through the use of certain words and iuncturae, but they are questioned by their very names: Homer for epic, Sappho for lascivious compositions, Virgil in relation to his birthplace, Septimius Serenus for the recollection of Annianus’ carmina Falisca, while Horace is implicitly evoked in a verse that echoes the start of the first Ode. This is also part of a precise didactic strategy: it is useful for grammarians to remind students of the name, the title of works, or the birthplace of the poets whom they study in school.

The author did not by chance claim manual’s brevity as a characteristic feature of the epilogue, and the lengthy and original example section serves as a didactic vehicle, whose results will be more appreciated the more that the addressee uses them in his writing (usus scribendi). As could be seen in the closing of the work and in the example that concludes the chapter on dactylic meter (‘versiculos tibi dactylicos cecini, puer optime, quos facias’), the Centimeter is not conceived as a metric manual for the reading and interpretation of poets, a ‘metrica passiva’ according to the fitting definition minted by De Nonno, but rather as a ‘metrica attiva’. [M. Elice, tr. C. Belanger]