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There, too, were the virgæ, or rods with thorns in them; the flagra, lori, and plumbati, whips and thongs, cutting with iron or bruising with lead; the heavy clubs; the hook for digging into the flesh; the ungula, said to have been a pair of scissors; the scorpio, and pecten, iron combs or rakes for tearing.
So we hastily picked up our beds with the wounded, and retreated with all speed behind the line of battle. We had hardly reached security when, from both sides, the cavalry advanced, both friends and enemies. The earth shook with the stamping of the hoofs, "Quadrupedante putrem crepitu quatit ungula campum."
This device like alliteration is a method of intensifying the expression of a passage, and is frequently adopted by the poets. In another famous onomatopoeic line "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum" Virgil imitates the sound of a galloping horse, and the shaking of the ground beneath its hoofs.
A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century, who began to dote upon their glossy plumes, and fluttered with impatience for the hour of their departure: Pereunt vestigia mille Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.
Indeed Gilbert says, "Ungula, egilops, cataracta and macula are species of pannus, all arising from the same causes and cured by the same treatment." The truth is none of these writers seem to have any very definite knowledge of the distinction between the various opacities of the media of the eye, all of which were included under the general term pannus.
The English verse which we call heroic consists of no more than ten syllables; the Latin hexameter sometimes rises to seventeen; as, for example, this verse in Virgil: "Pulverulenta putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." Here is the difference of no less than seven syllables in a line betwixt the English and the Latin.