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Style

The Aeneid, like other classical epics, is written in dactylic hexameter, meaning that each line has six feet made up of dactyls, or one long syllable and two shorts, and spondees, or two long syllables. As with other classical Latin poetry, the meter is based on the length of syllables rather than the stress, though the interplay of meter and stress is also important. Virgil also incorporated such poetic devices as alliteration, onomatopoeia, synecdoche, and assonance.