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182 j. g. f. powell
Short-range
A number of these are split only by a part of esse (whichismoreorless
a postpositive: see Adams 1994a) but should be counted nevertheless:
summa hominum est opinio (1.2.2)
consul est egregius (1.14.6)
molestia sum tanta adfectus (1.17.1)
summum erat periculum (1.17.9)
si mihi tantum esset oti (1.19.1)
multo essem crebrior (1.19.1)
contentionem fore aliquem (1.19.7).
The following 40 are split by a stronger verb than esse, or by a participle
with or without auxiliary, and in all of these instances, it seems to me,
the focusing function is clearly to be seen:
summam adhibebimus diligentiam (1.1.2)
ex tua putabam voluntate me statuere oportere (1.5.5)
humanitatis sparsae sale (1.13.1)
summo proposito periculo (1.16.5)
in tua posita est humanitate and huius levandae molestiae (1.17.4)
aures nactus tuas (1.18.1)
omnes profudi vires (1.18.2)
non odio adductus alicuius (1.18.2).
It is not clear whether the following example should be counted; it may
be an example of short-range hyperbaton but alacris may be a complement:
nonita...alacris exsultat improbitas (1.16.7).
One remaining example is hard to explain; if the text is right, it involves the
postponement of a possessive, which may place it in a special category: 41
Pompeius togulam illam pictam silentio tuetur suam (1.18.6).
As a check on this I chose at random another book of the letters to
Atticus, the eleventh. The style and tone of this book are significantly
different from those in evidence in the first. It is much more elliptical,
since by its date of composition, 48 bc, Atticus and Cicero were still more
intimate than in the years leading up to Cicero’s consulate; and Cicero’s
mood in Att. 11 is much less positive, since it covers the period of his great
falling-out with his brother. But the frequency of hyperbaton is almost
exactly the same – twenty-seven instances in a book of roughly similar
40 These may be the eight examples referred to by Adams 1971: 5–6.
41 On hyperbata involving possessives see Lundström 1982: 36; Albrecht 2003: 113 citing Menk 1925.