I’ve been thinking a bit about stichometry lately. As some of the primary sources did not seem to be easily accessible online, I’ve decided to write up a couple posts on the topic. We can begin with the opening of the entry for “stichometry” in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (2012):

“stichometry, the modern name for an ancient system of numbering lines in literary texts. In Greek papyri, this numbering takes two forms. (1) Marginal: each hundredth line marked with a letter of the alphabet (A = 100 up to Ω = 2400, then again from A). (2) Final: the sum total of lines in the work (roll) stated at the end, often introduced by ἀριθμός, ‘number,’ and most often in acrophonic numerals. Any individual copy may exhibit both, one, or neither; a few copies show lines checked off in fives, tens, or twenties. In verse, the ‘line’ defines itself. In prose, the numbering assumes a notional or standard line (the actual lines would differ in length from copy to copy): apparently15-16 syllables.”

At present, I am mostly interested in stichometric counts of prose texts. The basis for this standard length of a prose line is an incidental remark in Galen (On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 8.1.22-25). While engaged in a lively medical dispute, Galen repeatedly apologizes for writing so much when the matter at hand is actually, in his view, quite simple. In the course of one of these apologies, he provides some interesting equivalences. I provide the reference here in full in the translation of Phillip De Lacy.¹

“Thus the true account is as short as I shall demonstrate to you; it reaches its conclusion in a few syllables (δι᾽ ὀλίγων συλλαβῶν), as follows: ‘Where the beginning of the nerves is, there is the governing part. The beginning of the nerves is in the brain. Therefore, the governing part is there.’ This one argument has thirty-nine syllables (ἐννέα καὶ τριάκοντα συλλαβῶν), equivalent to two and one-half hexameters (δυοῖν καὶ ἡμίσεος ἐπῶν ἑξαμέτρων). A second argument is in all five lines long (πέντε τῶν πάντων ἐπῶν): ‘Where the affections of the soul more visibly move the parts of the body, there the affective part of the soul is. The heart is observed to undergo a great change of motion in anger and fear. Therefore, the affective part of the soul is in the heart.’ If you thus join these two arguments together, the combined total will be no more than eight hexameter lines (ἐπῶν ἑξαμέτρων ὀκτώ). Who, then, is to blame for my having written five books dealing with these matters that could have been scientifically demonstrated in eight heroic lines (διὰ ὀκτὼ στίχων ἡρωϊκῶν)?”²

On Galen’s reckoning, then, two and a half hexameters lines is 39 syllables of prose. If we do the math:
39/2.5=15.6
At the same time, eight ἡρωϊκοὶ στίχοι (or ἑξάμετρα ἔπη) are greater than 122 syllables. If we again do the math:
122/8=15.25

So, it seems then that an epos or a stichos in prose writing is 16 syllables. This finds support in (later) Latin tradition, in which a versus was also equivalent to 16 prose syllables. A Latin Christian sitchometric list generally called the Cheltenham List is preserved in two medieval manuscripts.³ The maker of the list appended the following note (given here in the text and translation of Rouse and McNelis):⁴

“Because the index of verses (indiculum versuum) in Rome is not clearly given, and because in other places too, as a result of greed, they do not preserve it in full, I have gone through the books one by one, counting sixteen syllables per line, and have appended to each book the number of Virgilian hexameters it contains.”⁵

The point of stichometric counts (or at least one of the points) seems to be to provide a standard way of measuring the length of a work. But as the statement above from the Cheltenham List indicates, it could be challenging to get an accurate stichometric count for a book. And in fact surviving lists and stichometric notations for biblical books often disagree with each other, sometimes significantly. But that will be the topic of another post.

1. Phillip De Lacy, Galen: On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato. Second Part: Books VI-IX, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005). ↩︎
2. De Lacy’s edition of the Greek: οὕτως γοῦν ὁ ἀληθὴς λόγος ἐστὶ βραχὺς ὡς ἐγὼ δείξω σοι δι’ ὀλίγων συλλαβῶν περαινόμενον αὐτὸν ὄντα τοιοῦτον· “ἔνθα τῶν νεύρων ἡ ἀρχή, ἐνταῦθα τὸ ἡγεμονικόν· ἡ δ’ ἀρχὴ τῶν νεύρων ἐν ἐγκεφάλῳ [ἐστίν]· ἐνταῦθα ἄρα τὸ ἡγεμονικόν.” εἷς μὲν οὗτος λόγος ἐννέα καὶ τριάκοντα συλλαβῶν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ δυοῖν καὶ ἡμίσεος ἐπῶν ἑξαμέτρων· ἕτερος δ’ ἐστὶ πέντε τῶν πάντων ἐπῶν· “ἔνθα τὰ πάθη τῆς ψυχῆς ἐπιφανέστερον κινεῖ τὰ μόρια τοῦ σώματος, ἐνταῦθα τὸ παθητικὸν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστιν· ἀλλὰ μὴν ἡ καρδία φαίνεται μεγάλην ἐξαλλαγὴν ἴσχουσα τῆς κινήσεως ἐν θυμοῖς καὶ φόβοις· ἐν ταύτῃ ἄρα τὸ παθητικὸν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστιν.” εἰ δὲ συνθείης ὡδὶ τούτους τοὺς δύο λόγους, οὐ πλεῖον ἐπῶν ἑξαμέτρων ὀκτὼ τὸ συγκείμενον ἐξ αὐτῶν πλῆθος ἔσται. τίνες οὖν αἴτιοι τοῦ πέντε βιβλία γραφῆναι περὶ τούτων ἃ διὰ ὀκτὼ στίχων ἡρωϊκῶν ἐπιστημονικὴν ἀπόδειξιν εἶχεν; ↩︎
3. The list itself is usually assigned to the second half of the fourth century, but the manuscripts that preserve them are later Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Vitt.Em.1325 (tenth or early eleventh century) and St. Gallen Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 133 (late eighth or early ninth century). ↩︎
4. Richard Rouse and Charles McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: A Cyprian Fragment, the Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2000) 189-238. It’s not totally clear whether this statement goes with the material that precedes it (a list of the stichoi of biblical books) or the material that follows it (a list of the stichoi of the works of Cyprian). ↩︎
5. Rouse and McNelis’s edition of the Latin: Quoniam indiculum versuum in urbe Roma non ad liquidum sed et alibi avariciae causa non habent integrum per singulos libros computatis syllabis posui numero XVI versum Virgilianum omnibus libris numerum adscribsi. ↩︎