Note 42 — INTRODUCTION

In describing the smooth or elegant style of composition (as practised by Isocrates and his followers, including Theopompus), Dionysius notes, as one of its characteristics, the avoidance of hiatus. This avoidance is to be noticed in the recently discovered Hellenica; and without basing any positive conclusion on the fact, Grenfell and Hunt point out that the author usually avoids hiatus “even at the cost of producing an unnatural order of words, e.g. ἐπηρμένοι μισεῖν ἦσαν τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους and ἴωμεν, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἔφη, πολῖται, ἐπὶ τοὺς τυράννους” (Oxyrhynchus Papyri v. 124).