Hiatus as a Dating Criterion for Hanno's Periplus

Abstract

I have no wish to enter into the debates over the origin, authorship, or date of Hano's Periplus, nor those over its status as a translation or as a summary, except to make this one observation: the author avoids hiatus with the same strictness as Plato in his 'late' works and Demosthenes. 1 This means that the work, as we have it, is a product of the fourth century at the earliest, unless we wish to credit its author with being the unheralded archaic inventor of a major stylistic feature of later prose. 2 * I would like to thank C.M. Lucarini for making his edition of Hanno'