Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges

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CONTACT OF VOWELS AND HIATUS

[*] 46. Attic more than any other dialect disliked the immediate succession of two vowel sounds in adjoining syllables. To avoid such succession, which often arose in the formation and inflection of words, various means were employed: contraction (48 ff.), when the vowels collided in the middle of a word; or, when the succession occurred between two words (hiatus), by crasis (62 ff.), elision (70 ff.), aphaeresis (76), or by affixing a movable consonant at the end of the former word (134).

[*] 47. Hiatus is usually avoided in prose writers by elision (70 ff.); but in cases where elision is not possible, hiatus is allowed to remain by different writers in different degrees, commonly after short words, such as ὦ, εἰ, ἤ, καί, μή, and the forms of the article.

[*] 47 D. Hiatus is allowed in certain cases.

1. In epic poetry: a. After ι and υ: ἄξονι ἀμφίς, σύ ἐσσι.

b. After a long final syllable having the rhythmic accent: μοι ἐθέλουσα ([macrdot]˘˘[macrdot]˘).

c. When a long final syllable is shortened before an initial vowel (weak , or improper, hiatus): ἀκτῇ ἐφ᾽ ὑψηλῇ ([macrdot]˘˘[macrdot]¯[macrdot]).

d. When the concurrent vowels are separated by the caesura; often after the fourth foot: ἀλλ᾽ ἄγ᾽ ἐμῶν ὀχέων ἐπιβήσεο, ι ὄφρα ἴδηαι; very often between the short syllables of the third foot (the feminine caesura): as, ἀλλ᾽ ἀκέουσα κάθησο, ι ἐμῷ δ᾽ ἐπιπείθεο μύ_θῳ; rarely after the first foot: αὐτὰρ ὁ ἔγνω A 333.

e. Where ϝ has been lost.

2. In Attic poetry hiatus is allowable, as in 1 c, and after τί what? εὖ well, interjections, περί concerning, and in οὐδὲ (μηδὲ) εἷς (for οὐδείς, μηδείς no one).