Preliminaries for a metrical-accentual analysis of Theocritus’ poetry

This paper attempts to take the first steps in an analysis of the distribution of accents in Theocritus’ hexameter, following the hypothesis, proposed recently by several scholars, that ancient poets distributed accents in a deliberate manner. After an introduction and some methodological considerations, the author studies the types of accent in the third foot of a group of eighteen Idylls (those that can be safely attributed to Theocritus), then the types of accent with which the poet closes his verses and, finally, he conducts an analysis of the correlation between the type of accent in the third and in the sixth foot. The study attempts to detect similarities and differences between the different poems and groups of poems, and to verify if they correspond with those found in the metricological analysis