A chronogram is a sentence or an inscription in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals (M, D,C,L,X,V,I), stand for a particular date when correctly arranged. This kind of inscription is often used to indicate the date of the completion, inauguration or restauration of buildings or monuments. For example:
AEDES HVC POSITAE PERSTENT IN NOMINE CHRISTI
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(the house built here may remain in the name of Christ)
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When you add the accentuated numerals, you get the date 1710.
A chronogram that is versified (like the one above), is of higher artistic value than a simple sentence.
There is, by the way, no difference between the capital letters U and V: both are represented as V.
Not all metres can be adapted for inscriptions. If an inscription is very short (the ingraving of a ring, for example), it is often impossible to versificate it because of the length of a verse.
Inscriptions in hexameters and elegiac couplets are often found on buildings. The elegiac couplet is also preferred for gravestones; the epigram on the grave of the Roman poet Vergil is a good example:
MANTVA ME GENVIT CALABRES RAPVERE TENET NVNC
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PARTHENOPE. CECINI PASCVA RVRA DVCES
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(Mantua bore me, Calabria took me away, now Naples is holding me. I sang of pastures, countrysides and heroes.)
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Each elegiac couplet consists of a longer verse with six accents (hexameter) and a shorter verse (pentameter) so that a typical elegant rhythm of declamation is achieved. The above quoted epigram is to be read like that:
Mántua mé genuít, Calabrés rapuére; tenét nunc
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Párthenopé. Ceciní páscua rúra ducés.
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Using the iambic trimeter is another good way of putting into verse proverbs, sayings or wishes, e.g.:
Amícus cértus ín re incérta cérnitùr
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(in an uncertain situation you recognize a real friend)
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The rhyme at the end of the verses which is so typical for German poems was hardly used by ancient Roman poets; it is, however, found frequently in medieval Latin poems. There are also hexameters (“leonine hexameters”) with a rhyme in the middle of the verse, e.g.:
Contra vim mortis non est medicamen in hortis
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(against power of death no medicine is found in the garden)
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Verses offered:
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| Verses |
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preferably for |
| hexameter |
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(universal use; except love poems and inscriptions on graves) |
| elegiac couplet (distichon) |
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(gravestones, chronograms, love poems) |
| iambic trimeter |
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(mottos and sentences) |
| hendecasyllabus |
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trifles; satirical poems |
| choliambus |
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(satirical poems) |
| alcaic stanza |
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advices, grave matters |
