Abstract

In poem 64 Catullus, as Fordyce points out in his edition, often has lines enclosed by a noun and its adjective, e.g.: 5 auratam optantes Colchis avertere pellem Very often, but not always, a syntactical unit is enclosed as well as the line. This is perhaps not surprising, considering the prevalence of punctuation at the end of the line in this poem. Nevertheless, an examination of the lines will show that when a noun and adjective1 enclose both line and syntactical unit the fact that they enclose a syntactical unit can be regarded as a determinant of the word order.