§13. “Aurea mella—in tua colla—curribus exit—ad limina templi—silentia rumpe—this use of the plural is a characteristic, perhaps (if we disregard word-order) the most characteristic feature of Latin poetic diction.” Paul Maas begins his Studien zum poetischen Plural bei den Römern with this observation; and it is notable that all but one of his examples, which represent common types, are neuters nominative or accusative. NAV neuter plurals, whether logical or ‘poetic’, are not less characteristic of the elegiac pentameter than of other Latin dactylic verse. How helpful they were in the composition of dactyls appears from the great frequency with which they occur in the second hemistich of the pentameter, where no substitution of spondees was allowed. Indeed, the word-order itself was affected and in some measure determined by their especial usefulness in this part of the verse.
A Mon, study studied this question.