SATUR'NIAN VERSE, the name given by the Romans to that species of verse in which their oldest poetical compositions, and more particularly the oldest national poetry. were composed. In the usage of the later pot is and grammarians the phrase has two different signitications. It is applied in a general way to denote the rude and unfixed measures of the ancient Latin ballad and song, and perhaps derived its name from being originally employed by the Latin husbandmen in their harvest-songs in honor of the god Saturn (q.v.). In this sense it simply means oidfaehioned, and is not intended to determine the character of the meter. It is also applied to the measure used by Ntevius, mid a coin mon op;nion, sanctioned by the great name of Bentley, is that it was a Greek meter introduced by him into Italy. But though the Saturnian verse is found among the measures employed by Archilochus, scholars generally incline to the opinion that this is an accidental coincidence. that the measure of Ntevins is of Italian (Hermann even thinks of Etruscan) origin, and that it merely improved on the older ballad•meter—the primi tive Saturnian verse. It combined iu use down to the time of Enttius (q.v.), who intro
duced the hexameter (q.v.). According to Hermann, the basis of the verse is contained in the following eehenia: J.- • which, as Macaulay happily points out, corresponds exactly to the nursery rhyme, The queen was in her parlor I Sating bread and hGney, and is frequently found in the Spanish poem of the aid, the Nibetunien Lied, and almost all specimens of early poetry; but in the treatment of it it wide and arbitrary freedom was taken by the old Roman poets, as is proVed by the still extant fragments of Nrcvi is, Livins Androniens, Ennius, and of the old inscription:try tables which the watap/eaorts set up in the capitol. in reinembrance of their glorious ichievements.—See Mstary of Roman Literature. by Thompson, Arnold, New luau, etc. (Encyclopedia Metro poldana, 1)52); Browne's Illetou of Claseieal Roma n Literature (1853); Niebuhr's History of Thine; Preface to Macaulay's Lays if Ancient Route; and Seller's Roman Poets of file Pepublie (1803).