Dactylic Hexameter (Vergil's Meter)
Dactylic hexameter is the meter of Latin epic — six feet to a line, each foot either a dactyl (— ⏑ ⏑) or a spondee (— —), built out of syllable quantity rather than English stress.
Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs — Vergil's first line is the canonical shape, and once it sits in your ear every other hexameter becomes a small variation on it.
The rules are tighter than they first look: the fifth foot is almost always a dactyl, the sixth always a spondee (or trochee at line-end), and a principal caesura falls inside the third foot — usually right after its first long syllable (the penthemimeral).
Add elision (multum ille → mult'ille) and you have everything you need to scan the Aeneid. This page teaches you to do it line by line.
Six feet per line: any foot may be a dactyl or a spondee, except foot 5 (almost always dactyl) and foot 6 (always spondee).
Resolve elisions BEFORE counting syllables — a final vowel or vowel+m drops before a vowel-initial next word.
See It In Action
— Verg. Aen. i. 1
The textbook hexameter shape: dactyl-dactyl-spondee-spondee-dactyl-spondee, with a clean penthemimeral caesura after canō. Internalize this one line and every other becomes a variation.
— Verg. Aen. i. 3
The famous double elision multum ille et terris → mult'ill'et terris — every student stumbles here first. Resolve elisions first, then scan; never the other way around.
— Verg. Aen. ii. 49
Laocoön's warning — the third-foot caesura falls right after Danaōs, so rhetorical and metrical pause coincide. Vergil leans on the operative word.
— Verg. Aen. i. 199
Aeneas rallying his men. Note the feminine caesura after the short of graviōra — rarer than masculine, used for a softer pause.
— Verg. Aen. vi. 86
Anchises greeting Aeneas in the underworld. Four spondees up front make the line grave — Vergil slows the rhythm to match the weight. Spondee-heavy openings are an emotional choice.
English readers want to scan by where the accent falls; Latin verse counts time, not loudness — a heavy syllable takes twice as long as a light one regardless of accent.
where the accent falls when read aloud
AR-ma vi-RUM-que CA-no
natural English emphasis pattern — wrong for scansion
heavy (—) vs. light (⏑) by syllable length
Ar-ma vi-rum-que ca-nō = — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —
two dactyls + one long opening foot 3 — scansion ignores stress entirely
Tip: Ask: does the syllable have a long vowel, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two consonants (or x or z)? If yes, it's heavy. Word accent does not enter the calculation.
Scan the opening of Aeneid i. 4: vī superum ‖ saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram. What is the metrical shape of feet 1 and 2?
Study Tips
- •Mark the last two feet first — they are almost always dactyl + spondee (— ⏑ ⏑ | — ×). That anchors the line; then work the first four feet from the start.
- •Find the elisions before counting syllables. multum ille scans as three syllables, not four — miss this and the whole foot pattern collapses.
- •Look for the third-foot caesura by ear: it almost always coincides with a sense break and a strong word boundary. If you can't find one in foot 3, check foot 4.
- •Memorize Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs cold — dactyl-dactyl-spondee-spondee-dactyl-spondee, caesura in foot 3. Every other line is a variation.