A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

494 HIIPPONAX. HIPPONAX.
Hipponax, then, lived in the latter half of the sixth trochaic monometer. Such lines are called by the
century B. c., about half a century after Solon, and grammarians Ischiorrhogic (broken-backed): they
a century and a half later than Archilochus. are very rarely used by Hipponax. The choliLike others of the early poets, Hipponax was ambics of Hipponax were imitated by many later
distinguished for his love of liberty. The tyrants writers: among others, the Fables of Babrius are
of his native city, Athenagoras and Comas, having composed entirely in this metre. (Clem. Alex.
expelled him from his home, he took up his abode Strom. i. p. 308. d.; Cic. Orat. 56; Athen. xv.
at Clazomenae, for which reason he is sometimes p. 701, f.; and the Latin grammarians, see
called a Clazomenian. (Sulpicia, Sat. v. 6.) He Welcker, p. 18; Bdickh, de Metr. Pind. p. 151.)
there lived in great poverty, and, according to one A few of the extant lines of Hipponax are in the
account, died of want. pure iambic metre; but there is no evidence that
In person, Hipponax was little, thin, and ugly, he used such verses in connection with choliambi
but very strong. (Athen. xii. p. 552, c. d.; Ae- in the same poem.
lian. V. H. x. 6; Plin. 1. c.) His natural defects, We know, from Suidas, that he wrote other
like the disappointment in love of Archilochus, poems besides his choliambi and his parody. His
furnished the occasion for the development,of his choliambi formed two books, if not more. (Bekker,
satirical powers. The punishment of the daughters Anecd. vol. i. p. 85; Pollux, x. 18.) The other
of Lycambes by the Parian poet finds its exact poems mentioned by Suidas were probably lyrical.
parallel in the revenge which Hipponax took on (See Welcker, p. 24.) As to parody, of which
the brothers Bupalus and Athenis. These brothers, Suidas and Polemo (Athen. xv. p. 698, b.) make
who were sculptors of Chios, made statues of Hip- him the inventor (though it is self-evident that the
ponax, in which they caricatured his natural ugli- origin of parody is much older), we possess the
ness; and he in return directed all the power of opening of a poem in heroic metre which he comhis satirical poetry against them, and especially posed as a parody on the Iliad. (Athen. 1. c.)
against Bupalus. (Plin. 1. c.'; Horat. Epod. vi. 14; The Achilles of the parody is an Ionian glutton,
Lucian, Pseudol. 2; Philip. Epiyr. in Anth. Pal. and the object of the poet seems to have been to
vii. 405; Brunck. Anal. vol. ii. p. 235; Julian. satirize the luxury of the Ionians. (See Mozer,
EVpi.st. 30; Schol. ad Aristoph. Av. 575; Suid. Ueber d. parod. Poes. d. Griech. in Daub and Creus. v.) Later writers improved upon the resem- zer's Studien, vol. vi. p. 267, Heidelb. 1811.)
blance between the stories of Archilochus and The choliambics of Hipponax, though directed
Hipponax, by making the latter poet a rejected chiefly against the artists Bupalus and Athenis,
suitor of the daughter of Bupalus, and by ascribing embraced also other objects of attack. He severely
to the satire of Hipponax the same fatal effect as chastised the effeminate luxury of his Ionian
resulted from that of Archilochus. (Acron. ad brethren; he did not spare his own parents; and
IIorat. 1.c.) Pliny (I. c.) contradicts the story of he ventured even to ridicule the gods. The anll
the suicide of Bupalus by referring to works of his cients seem to have regarded him as the bitterest
which were executed at a later period. A s for the and most unkindly of all satirists, generally coupling
fragment of Hipponax (Fr. vi. p. 29, Welcker) his name with the epithet 7rLpo6s. (Eustath. in
i KXaropIe'otoL, BovraXos Karer'K'setdev, if it be his Od. xi. p. 1684, 51, et alib.; Cic. Epist. ad Fanm.
(for it is only quoted anonymously by Rufinus, vii. 24.) Leonidas of Tarentum, in an elegant
p. 2712, Putsch.), instead of being considered a epigram, warns travellers not to pass too near his
proof of the story, it should more probably be re- tomb, lest they rouse the sleeping wasp (Brunck.
garded as having formed, through a too literal inter- Anal. vol. i. p. 246, No. 97); and Alcaeus of Mespretation, one source of the error. sene says that his grave, instead of being covered,
The most striking feature in the satirical Iam- like that of Sophocles, with ivy, and the vine, and
bics of Hipponax is the change which he made in climbing roses, should be planted with the thorn
the metre, by introducing a Spondee or Trochee in and thistle. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 490, No. 18.).
the last foot, instead of an Iambus. This change But Theocritus, probably with greater truth, warns
made the verse irregular in its rhythm (appvOleov), the wicked alone to beware of his tomb, and invites
and gave it a sort of halting movement, whence it the good to sit near it without fear, applying to the
was called the Choliambus (XowAtamAo's, lame tam- poet at the same time the honourable epithet of
bi/), or Iambus Scazon (aKS'wv, limping). By this lAovaooroo's. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 382, No.
change the Iambic Trimeter 20.) He may be said to occupy a middle place
/' /,'' between Archilochus and Aristophanes. He is as
vas converd V V iV V bitter, but not so earnest, as the former, while in
was converted into
/ /, )/ ~ /, lightness and jocoseness lie more resembles the
v, ~ - v - v - ~ - - ~ latter. Archilochus, in his greatest fury, never
Much ingenuity has been expended in the explana- forgets his dignity: Hipponax, when most bittei,
tion of the effect of this change; but only let the is still sportive. This extends to his language,
reader recite, or rather chaunt, a few verses of which abounds with common words. Like most
Hipponax according to the above rhythm, and he satirists, he does not spare the female sex, as, for
will have little difficulty in perceiving how ad- instance, in the celebrated couplet in which he says
mirably adapted it is to the warm, but playful that " there are two happy days in the life of a
satire of the poet. He introduces similar varia- married man —that in which he receives his wife,
tions into the other Iambic metres, and into the and that in which he carries out her corpse."
Trochaic Tetrameter. There are still extant about a hundred lines of
When the variation on the sixth foot of the his poems, which are collected by Welcker (Hiptrimeter coexists with a spondee in the fifth place, ponactis et Ananii Iambographorum Fragmenta,
the verse becomes still more irregular, and can, in Gotting. 1817, 8vo.), Bergk (Poetae Lyrici Graeci),
fact, hardly be considered an Iambic verse, but is Schneidewin (Delect. Poes. Graec.), and by Meirather a combination of an iambic dimeter with a neke, in Lachmann's edition of Babrius, (Babrii