Hyperbolus

Hyperbolus(‹See Tfd›Greek:Ὑπέρβολος,Hyperbolos;died 412/411 BC) was anAthenianpolitician active during the first half of thePeloponnesian war,coming to particular prominence after the death ofCleon.In 416 or 415 BC, he was the last Athenian to beostracised.

Ostraconagainst Hyperbolus (c. 417 BC).

Life

A fragment of a document by 4th-century BC Greek historianTheopompussuggests that Hyperbolus was the son of Chremes, but surviving ostraka prove that his father's name was actually Antiphanes.Some ancient sources claim that Hyperbolus was from a slave family, though the fact that his father had a Greek name makes this unlikely.

Hyperbolus was ademagogue,and an allusion inAristophanes' playThe Knightssuggests that he, likeCleon(another demagogue of the late fifth century), supported an ambitious Athenian foreign policy.The precise details of his political career are unknown,but he seems to have been a member of thebouleand possibly atrierarch.

Hyperbolus was a frequent target of the authors ofOld Comedy.The first to satirise him was supposedlyHermippus;Platothe comic poet andEupoliswrote plays about him; and there are allusions to Hyperbolus in seven ofAristophanes' surviving plays, fromAcharniansin 425 toThe Frogsin 405 BC. By contrast, only a single "contemptuous" reference to Hyperbolus is found in Thucydides.

In 416 or 415 BC, Hyperbolus proposed an ostracism, and was himself ostracised.In 412/411 BC he was murdered onSamos.According to Thucydides, the Athenian general Charminus was involved in the killing.Theopompus claims that Hyperbolus' body was stuffed into a wineskin and thrown into the sea; this may be derived from a comedy.

Ostracism

Sometime between the years 417 and 415 BC, Hyperbolus wasostracised.According toPlutarch,who described the ostracism in three of hisLives,the ostracism was proposed by Hyperbolus himself, intending to have eitherNiciasorAlcibiades–Theophrastussays Alcibiades orPhaeax– ostracised; the two politicians put aside their differences and persuaded their supporters to vote to ostracise Hyperbolus instead.

The date of the ostracism is uncertain. It was traditionally thought that Hyperbolus was ostracised in 417 BC, six years before he was murdered.However, an inscription naming Hyperbolus as the proposer of an amendment to a law was restored in 1949 by A. G. Woodhead, which suggests that he was still active after an ostracism in 417 ought to have taken place.As Nicias and Alcibiades were potential victims of the ostracism, however, it cannot have taken place any later than 415 BC; 416 or 415 are thus the only possible years for the ostracism to have taken place.P. J. Rhodes suggests that 415 BC is slightly more likely.

Legacy

Ostracism does not seem ever to have been used again in Athens after Hyperbolus,though the practice was never formally abolished.According to Plutarch, this was because the Athenians were so disgusted with the outcome of the ostracism that they abandoned the practice.Rhodes argues, however, that ostracism was in fact abandoned because it was too imprecise, and from the late fifth century the Athenians began to use more targeted methods for holding office-holders to account.For instance, 415 BC, the probable date of the last ostracism, was also the earliest date a legal process known asgraphe paranomonis known to have been in use.

Works cited

• Baldwin, Barry (1971), "Notes on Hyperbolus",Acta Classica,14
• Hornblower, Simon (2011),The Greek World: 479–323 BC(4 ed.), Abingdon: Routledge
• Rhodes, P. J. (1994), "The Ostracism of Hyberbolus", in Osborne, Robin; Hornblower, Simon (eds.),Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts presented to David Lewis,Oxford: Clarendon Press

External links

• Media related toHyperbolusat Wikimedia Commons