Sotadean metre

The sotadean metre (pronounced: /soʊtəˈdiən/)^[1][2] was a rhythmic pattern used by and named after the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Sotades. It is generally classified as a type of ionic metre, though in fact it is half ionic and half trochaic. It has several variations, but the usual pattern is this:

– – u u | – – u u | – u – u | – –

An example from Petronius is:

ter corripuī terribilem manū bipennem

"three times I seized the terrible two-edged axe with my hand"

A characteristic of the sotadean metre is its variability. Sometimes the trochaic rhythm is found in the first metron or the second; sometimes the ionic rhythm continues through the whole line. Usually each metron has exactly 6 morae, but there is also a less strict type of sotadean found in some writers in which a metron may have 7 morae, such as – u – –, – – – u, or – – u –. There is also frequent resolution (substitution of two shorts for a long syllable).

The sotadean was used both in Greek and in Latin literature, and by several authors, but it is not very common. It had a reputation for being vulgar and indecent; but it was also sometimes used for more serious purposes, for example, didactic poems such as Lucius Accius's now lost history of Greek and Latin poetry, or Terentianus Maurus's grammatical treatise on the letters of the alphabet.

The lost treatise Thalia by the heretical Christian theologian Arius is also sometimes said to have been written in sotadean metre, but it has been shown to be in a slightly different type, longer by one syllable.