Alliteration in Horace

Abstract

Questions that this paper will attempt to answer are: Does Horace show a preference for alliteration of any particular letter or letters? If so, is this due to the fact that a proportionately large number of the words of his vocabulary begin with this letter or these letters? Does he show a preference of any particular syntactical relation between the members of alliterative expressions? If so, what relation? Does he use alliteration more in one kind of metre than in another? Does he use alliteration more in one part of the line than in another? Is alliteration used in connection with other rhetorical figures such as assonance, rhyme, onomatopoeia, or etymological figure?