and phrases of a religious or legal character. Examples of popular phrases are: "to waste both oil and time", "beware of the dog", "alive and well", "enough and more", "white or black", "public and private", and so on. Legal and religious phrases included such as "tablets and witnesses", "altars and shrines", "houses and temples", "brave and loyal", "routed and put to flight", "Chance and Fortune". Frequently such alliterating phrases show asyndeton, i.e. the two words are placed side by side with no conjunction such as "and". Another example of this is the boast "I came, I saw, I conquered" attributed to Julius Caesar. It has been noted that in these phrases that if one of two alliterated words has an "a" in it, it is usually placed second: "by sword and flame", "far and wide", "hills and plains", "many and great". When the words are of unequal length, the shorter one usually precedes: "fame and fortune", "gold and silver", "care and custody", and so on. As both Peck and Cordier noted, the Latin language naturally lends itself to such phrases, making them part of everyday speech. Some apparent examples of alliteration therefore are likely to be fortuitous, for example Jesus's saying "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14.6), which is translated from a Greek original. In prayers Some of the early prayers () which survive, such as the one which begins as follows, are partly alliterative, but the alliteration is not maintained throughout the prayer: "Father Mars, I pray and beg you that you be willing and propitious" It contains alliterative lines such as this: "that you may keep the herdsmen and the cattle safe" However, much of the prayer is not alliterative. McGann (1958) concludes that alliteration is an important but occasional device which adds greatly to the effect of the composition, but does not perform a structural function in the as a whole. In poetry The earliest Latin poems, unlike early Germanic and English poetry, do not have obligatory alliteration. Most of the fragments of the early accentual Saturnian poetry listed by Lindsay exhibit no alliteration, although some do, for example the following line, attributed to Naevius (c.270–c.201 BC), which has alliteration of M, P, and T: "A tumult of great fear possesses their hearts" The epic poet Ennius (c.239–c.169 BC) made very frequent use of alliteration. In the following example, the alliteration emphasises