Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Care must also be taken that the last syllables of one word are not identical with the opening syllables of the next. In case any of my readers should wonder that I think it worth while to lay down such a rule, I may point out that Cicero makes such a slip in his Letters, in

v7-9 p.531
the sentence res mihi invisae visae sunt, Brute, [*]( The letter is lost. The situation seemed hateful to me, Brutus. ) and in the following line of verse,
  1. Ofortunatam natam me consule Romam.
See XI. i. 24. [*](O happy Rome, born in my consulship.)

Again it is a blemish to have too many monosyllables in succession, since the inevitable result is that, owing to the frequency of the pauses, the rhythm degenerates into a series of jerks. For the same reason we must avoid placing a number of short verbs and nouns in succession; the converse also is true as regards long syllables, since their accumulation makes our rhythm drag. It is a fault of the same class to end a number of successive sentences with similar cadences, terminations and inflexions.