In a recent article on Plutarch's style in the Marius, T. F. Carney, asserting Plutarch's ‘ability to orchestrate the action of a passage in the words used to express that action’, quotes 37.1

and states that this is an all but complete Iambic Septenarius or Octonarius. How far does it fall short? δρῶσιν ἱππέων will occupy not the first 1½ metra of the line but the second ½ metron and the next metron, as the two long syllables of ἵλην cannot occupy the second half of a metron. The next 1½ metra, then, are ἵλην πρόσωθεν ἐλαύν-. Here we must stop, as the remainder of ἐλαύνοντας cannot stand in the second half of a metron, –οντ– being long. Altogether, then, we have ½ metron followed by 2½ metra, with -οντας excluded. In fact, it would be better not to think of a Septenarius or Octonarius and to be content with saying that the quoted words show a strong iambic rhythm. Or we might say that an iambic passage is immediately followed by another iambic passage