The Meters of Roman Comedy

The Meters of Roman Comedy

Timothy J. Moore, The Meters of Roman Comedy

This database is dedicated to the memory of Cesare Questa (1934-2016), the incomparable master of Roman Comedy’s numeri innumeri, without whom it would not have been possible.

Introduction

This is a database of all metrical units (passages in an individual meter) in the extant plays of Plautus and Terence except for the fragmentary Vidularia.
Each record represents a metrical unit, or a passage in a single meter (these range from one verse to over 200 verses), and includes the following fields:

Fields immediately visible in each record:

• Playwright
• Play
• Starting Line: the number of the first verse of this metrical unit
• Ending Line: number of the last verse of this metrical unit
• Line Count: total number of verses in this metrical unit
• Starting Text: a quotation of the first verse in the passage
• Ending Text: a quotation of the last verse in the passage
• Meter: the meter of the passage (in the case of verses that include more than one meter, all are recorded as one: e.g.: ba2bacol counts as one meter, as does a versus reizianus and cr2tr4cat)
• Meter Before: the meter of the passage immediately preceding this one
• Meter After: the meter of the passage immediately following this one
• Character, Character Verses, Character Type: The name of each character who speaks or sings in the passage, the number of verses in which that character speaks or sings in the passage (in verses where one or more characters speak, one verse is attributed to each character, regardless of how much or how little of the verse that character delivers); and the character's type.
• Meter Type: the type of meter to which the meter of the passage belongs (if two or more meter types occur in the same verse, both are counted: e.g.: cr2tr4cat counts as both cretic and trochaic)...

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