Greek and Latin metre

Greek and Latin metre is an overall term used for the various rhythms in which Greek and Latin poems were composed. The individual rhythmical patterns used in Greek and Latin poetry are also known as "metres" (US "meters").

Greek poetry developed first, starting as early as the 8th century BC with the epic poems of Homer and didactic poems of Hesiod, which were composed in the dactylic hexameter. A variety of other metres were used for lyric poetry and for classical Greek drama.

Some of the earliest Latin poems, dating from the 3rd century BC, were composed in Saturnian verse, which is not used in Greek. Apart from these Saturnian poems, which today survive only in fragments, all Latin poetry is written in adaptations of various Greek metres. Although a large number of Greek metres were adapted, Latin verse tends to imitate only the simpler forms, and complex stanzas in irregular and rapidly changing metres such as the dactylo-epitrite used in many of Pindar's choral odes are not found in Latin.^[1]