In R. C. Flickinger's (3rd ed. second impression 1929) we read on pp. 171In the iambic trimeters written by Aeschylus a trisyllabic substitution (tribrach, anapaest or dactyl) for the pure disyllabic iambus occurs only once in about twenty-five verses.Tragic Drama of the Greekstrimeters’ lines like.

It has frequently been observed that the Prometheus Vinctus shows certain Sophoclean characteristics of rhythm. In order to vary the rhythm of his iambics and to avoid monotony, Sophocles often knits consecutive trimeters closely together by placing at the end of one line some word which looks forward to the next line, and so precludes the reader from stopping for the natural pause after the sixth foot. Sometimes he uses in this way subordinating words which introduce a dependent clause in (...) the next line ; sometimes proclitics or quasi-proclitics. (shrink)

Towards the conclusion of his interesting remarks on the meaning of the Homeric phrase, τ δ' πτερος πλετο μθος, Professor J. A. K. Thomson writes, ‘When a classical author uses the word πτερος it means “wingless” or “featherless” and nothing else,’ and he accordingly rejects Headlam's interpretation of πτερος φτις at Aesch. Ag. 288 together with the same scholar's proposal to read at P. V. 707 πτερος for the unmetrical απνδιος It may be true that the phrase, πτρ τάχει, which (...) Headlam adduced in his note on the Agam. passage in support of his rendering, is not by itself convincing, but there are other considerations which Professor Thomson has, I imagine, overlooked. What follows is not an attempt to demonstrate that πτερος does mean ‘wing-swift’ in Aeschylus, but only to suggest that there is evidence to show that the word could bear that meaning in classical Greek authors, and that Headlam's interpretation and emendation should therefore not be rejected out of hand. (shrink)