The avoidance may generally, though not always, be traced in an unusual order of words.[274] Examples of harsh hiatus are rare, though there are many unimportant instances. Quite apart from theoretical rules, a good orator will instinctively avoid awkward combinations of letters, for euphony is necessary for fluent speaking. Aeschines, secure in the possession of a perfect delivery, might admit sounds which Isocrates and other theorists considered harsh; it was with practical declamation that he was concerned. The use of the rhetorical ‘figures’ is a prominent characteristic of Aeschines. The verbal contrasts which Gorgias and the Sophists affected, many of which seem to us so frigid and tedious, have too much honour from Aeschines; for instance, the purely formal antithesis—‘He mentions the names of those whose bodies he has never seen.’[275] where the sound of the jingle—ὀνόματα, σώματα—is more important than the sense. The effect of such ‘like endings’ (_homoeoteleute_) cannot as a rule be reproduced, though sometimes a play upon words will indicate it: _e.g._ οὐ τὸν τρόπον ἀλλὰ τὸν τόπον μόνον μετήλλαξεν—‘he has changed, not his habits, but only his habitation.’[276] In such assonance there is an undoubted aiming at comic effect. A forcible repetition of words is found in such sentences as the following: ‘What I saw, I reported to you as I saw it; what I heard, as I heard it; now what was it that I saw and heard about Cersobleptes? I saw ...’ etc.[277] Repetitions of this and similar kinds seem to break at times from the speaker’s control, and pass all measure.[278] Aeschines does not seem to have paid any attention to rhythmical writing; his style is too free to be bound by unnecessary restrictions; verses and metrical passages occur sporadically, but they are rare. He seems to have fallen into them by accident, since they occur in positions where no special point is marked by an unusual rhythm.[279] Direct quotations of poetry, for which he had a great liking, are, on the other hand, very frequent. No other orator, except Lycurgus, is comparable to him in this respect, and Lycurgus uses his power of quotation with much less force than Aeschines, who often employs it aptly. He gives us the impression that serious religious conviction is at the back of his quotation from Hesiod: ‘Often the whole of a city must suffer for one man’s sin.’[280] In other cases the quotations are excessively long and, like those of Lycurgus, have hardly any bearing on the point. His metaphors are sometimes vivid and well chosen—ἀμπελουργεῖν τὴν πόλιν—‘to strip the city like a vineyard’; ἔναυλον ἦν πᾶσιν—‘it was dinned into everybody’s ears.’ Some of the most forcible occur in passages which purport to be quotations or paraphrases of Demosthenes: _e.g._ ἐπιστομίσαι, ‘to bridle’ the war-party; ἀπορράψειν τὸ Φιλίππου στόμα, ‘to sew up Philip’s mouth.’[281] These are probably caricatures of Demosthenes’ daring phrases.