The Palatine Anthology – Book 1: A Metrical and Prosodic Statistical Study

The article describes and interprets the dataset (see Nicolae & Șimon, 2026) containing the metrical-prosodic analysis of the first book of the Palatine Anthology: 123 epigrams, 500 lines (hexameters κατὰ στίχον, elegiac distichs, iambic dodecasyllabic trimeters), dating from the 5th to the 10th centuries. The online database includes: (i) an .xlsx file with the detailed metrical and prosodic analysis of all verses, (ii) three .csv files with the hyphenation of the three verse types (hexameter, pentameter, and iamb), all to be found in the “Data” folder, and (iii) an interactive .html viewer that interprets and displays the data (scansion, feet, caesurae, diaereses, violation of bridges, homodynia), located in the “Build” folder. The paper highlights several research areas where this database can be particularly valuable: studies on the history of versification, analyses of the functions of the caesura, inquiries into premodern versification strategies, as well as understanding the phonological profile of the Greek language.