Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

On the other hand, hiatus is not to be regarded as so very terrible a crime: in fact I do not know which is the worse fault in this connexion, carelessness or a pedantic

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solicitude for correctness. For anxiety on this score is bound to check the flow of our language and to divert us from more important considerations. Therefore while it is a sign of carelessness to admit hiatus here, there and everywhere, it is a symptom of grovelling timidity to be continually in terror of it, and there is good reason for the view that all the followers of Isocrates and more especially Theopompus pay accessive attention to the avoidance of this detect.

On the other hand Demosthenes and Cicero show a sense of proportion in the way in which they face the problem. For the coalescence of two letters, known as συναλοιφή, may make our language run more smoothly than if every word closed with its own vowel, while sometimes hiatus may even prove becoming and create an impression of grandeur, as in the following case, pulchra oratione ista iacta te. [*](Boast yourself of that fine speech of yours.) For syllables which are naturally long and rich in sound gain something from the time which intervenes between two vowels, as though there were a perceptible pause.