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It's the same in all kinds of classical Latin verse, I believe, not only in pentameters. The last syllable can just be anything.
I think there are a few lines in a few lyrical metres by Horace ... like the third line in the third asclaepiad, which always finishes in a long syllable (again, if you consider closed syllables at the end to be long by position) ... but in the vast majority of metres, the last syllable is anceps.That's true.
O navis, referent in mare te novi
fluctus. O quid agis? Fortiter occupa
portum. Nonne vides ut
nudum remigio latus,
et malus celeri saucius Africo 5
antemnaque gemant ac sine funibus
vix durare carinae
possint imperiosius
aequor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea,
non di, quos iterum pressa voces malo. 10
Quamvis Pontica pinus,
silvae filia nobilis,
iactes et genus et nomen inutile:
nil pictis timidus navita puppibus
fidit. Tu, nisi ventis 15
debes ludibrium, cave.
Nuper sollicitum quae mihi taedium,
nunc desiderium curaque non levis,
interfusa nitentis
vites aequora Cycladas. 20
fluctus. O quid agis? Fortiter occupa
portum. Nonne vides ut
nudum remigio latus,
et malus celeri saucius Africo 5
antemnaque gemant ac sine funibus
vix durare carinae
possint imperiosius
aequor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea,
non di, quos iterum pressa voces malo. 10
Quamvis Pontica pinus,
silvae filia nobilis,
iactes et genus et nomen inutile:
nil pictis timidus navita puppibus
fidit. Tu, nisi ventis 15
debes ludibrium, cave.
Nuper sollicitum quae mihi taedium,
nunc desiderium curaque non levis,
interfusa nitentis
vites aequora Cycladas. 20
I see absolutely no problem with that term.Though I hate that term "long by position"; it's so inexact.