Stichos

Stichos is a term from ancient Greek that literally means a line or row. In literary usage, a stichos refers to a single line of verse, and the plural stichoi denotes the lines themselves. The word is used to describe the basic unit of poetry in many Greek metrical systems.

In classical contexts, stichos is often contrasted with larger structural concepts such as stanzas or sections. A piece of Greek poetry can be described as stichic when it is composed in continuous lines without formal stanzaic breaks. The term thus helps distinguish line-by-line organization from other poetic forms that rely on grouped stanzas or a different division of material.

Stichometry, the related practice of counting stichoi, played a practical role in antiquity. Scribes and editors used line counts to estimate the length of a work, manage copying work, and sometimes determine compensation for performers such as rhapsodes or poets. Some ancient and later manuscript descriptions and scholarly apparatus refer to the number of stichoi as a measure of a text’s length, although the exact line length can vary by meter and recension.

In modern philology and textual criticism, stichos remains a technical term for the discussion of meter, line length, and manuscript tradition in Greek poetry. It is particularly relevant to studies of epic and lyric poetry, where line-based organization and line counts illuminate how ancient authors structured their verse and how scribes transmitted those texts.