Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/552

Rh 538 HYPERBOLUS. HYPE'RBIUS ('T7re/>§tos), of Corinth, a my- thical artist, to whom, in conjunction with Agro- las or Euryalus, the invention of brick walls is ascribed. Another tradition made him the in- ventor of the potter's wheel. (Paus. i. 28. § 3, Bekker's text ; Schol. ad Find. 01. xiii. ; Plin. H.N.yn.5Q.) [P. S.] HYPE'RBOLUS H^'t-n^pSoXos), the Athenian demagogue, was, according to Androtion, son of Antiphanes ; according to Theopompus, son of Chremes, and brother of Charon. (Schol. ad Lvr cian, Tim. 30, and ad Aristoph. Pac. 681.) The father, if we may believe an extract from the speech of Andocides against Nicocles (Harpocra- tion, and Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 1007), was at the very time of the son's political notoriety at work in the Mint as a public slave. His mother sold bread, and he made lamps. One scholiast {ad Aristoph. Nvb. 1065), but perhaps by an ignorant conjecture, tells us that he used to cheat his cus- tomers by using lead instead of brass. Our first notice of him occurs in B. c. 425, the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War, a year marked by the capture of the Spartans at Sphac- teria, and the culmination of the power of Cleon. Among the plagues of that time, Aristophanes {Ach. 846) records " the law-suits of Hyperbolus." In 424, in the Knights, a senior trireme on behalf of the navy expresses consternation at the prospect of being sent under his command to Chalcedon. This is, perhaps, only an inuen Jo at Cleon. Further on, the reformed Demus declares a devout intention of making an end of him. {Equit. 1301, 1360.) In the same character of a thriving litigant, he is named again in the Wasps (b. c. 422), and Clouds {Vesp. 1007, Nvh. 874, 1065), in which latter play he is also said to have held that year the office of Amphictyonic Hieromnemon ; but what that year was, the uncertainty of the date of any particular passage in the Clouds makes it hard to say. In some of its latest additions, dating after B. c. 421, the great comedian speaks with com- passionate contempt of the way in which his own bold attack on Cleon had been travestied in the case of the pitiful Hyperbolus. He and his mother were the subject of the " Maricas" of Eupolis, and of a play, it appears, of Hermippus, called the " Bread- women." {Nvh. 549 — 560, and Schol.) To these attacks the Scholiast on Lucian {Tim. 30) adds that of Polyzelus, in the Demotyndareos ; Cratinus, in the " Horae," where he rebuked him for his early appearance as a speaker in the assembly ; Eupolis in the " Cities," and Plato in the Hyperbolus. Cratinus died B. c. 422, and had also named him in the "Pytine," B.C. 422. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 6.91.) The "Maricas " of Eupolis was acted b. c. 421, a few months after the death of Cleon, and just before the peace of Nicias ; and to the ensuing period, in which Hyperbolus was struggling for the demagogic throne of Cleon, most of the other plays may be referred. Aristophanes recurs to him in the Peace, B. c. 4 1 9, and calls him there " the present master of the stone in the Pnyx," but only for lack of a better, and presently promises to celebrate the arrival of '* Peace" by driving him out, {Pax., 681, 921, 1320. Compare further Tliesmoph. 847, Ran. 577, and Schol. ad Plut. 1037, Equit. 851.) The influence of Nicias and Alcibiades seems to have been too great to leave much room for Hyper- bolus : indeed he was, it would seem, quite inferior in ability to Cleon. In the hope of getting rid of HYPERECHIUS. one at least of these rivals, he called, as appears from Plutarch, for the exercise of the ostracism. But the parties endangered, whether Nicias and Alcibiades, or the latter and Phaeax, as stated by Theophrastus, combined to defeat him, and the vote of exile fell on Hyperbolus himself: an ap- plication of that dignified punishment by which it was thought to have been so debased that the use of it was never recurred to. As the comic poet Plato, probably in his " Hyperbolus," wrote : " His fate was worthy of his courses. But of himself and his slave-brand unworthy ; Not for the like of him was meant the sherd." (Plut. Arist. 7, Ale. 13, Nic. 11.) This appears to have happened just before the sail- ing of the first expedition to Sicily, B. c. 416 or 415. (Comp. Theophr. ap. Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 1007, and ad Lucian., Tim. 30). He seems to have retired to Samos ; and in Samos, in the year 411 B. o., the members of a plot for restoring oligarchy there murdered him, more as a bond among themselves than because of his im- portance. Thucydides confirms here (viii. 74) the story of Plutarch, styling Hyperbolus " a worthless character, who had been ostracised not through apprehension of power and repute, but for his vil- lainy's sake, and the shame of the city." Accord- ing to Theopompus (/. c), his body was put in a sack, and thrown into the sea. Andocides {I. c.) calls him a foreigner and barbarian ; and the comedians assign him to Lydia, Phrygia, Syria. Three verses from Plato's " Hyperbolus" (ap. Herod. Trepi fj.ou. A6|. p. 20), which, to all appearance, speak of him, are worth quoting : — 6 S'ov yap TjTrfKtfei/, qi Movarai (plKai, ecpaaKe STjTw/iTji/, oirore 5'eine7v 5eot 6iyov, eeyeu oXiov. (See Meineke, Quaest. Seen. ii. p. 26.) [A. H. C] HYPERCHEl'RIA('T7repxetp^a), the goddess who holds her protecting hand over a thing, a sur- name under which Hera had a sanctuary at Sparta, which had been erected to her at the command of an oracle, when the country was inundated by the river Eurotas. (Paus. iii. 13. § 6.) [L. S.] HYPERE'CHIUS ('TTrep^x'^O- 1- Ammianus Marcellinus mentions an officer of this name who commanded (a. d. 365) a body of troops sent by Procopius to oppose the forces of tlie emperor Valens, against whom he had revolted. Hyperechius had previously been " castrensis apparitor," or, as some have proposed to read the words, " gastrensis appa- ritor," sc. " ventris vel gulae minister ;" and Arin- thaeus, the general of Valens, despising him too much j to engage him in the field, induced the soldiers of^ Hypereciiius to seize their general. Valesius thinkBJ that the Hyperechius, son of Maximus, whom I Libanius praises for his talents, and for whom hel endeavoured to obtain the office of praeses of oneS of the provinces, is the Hyperechius of Ammianus j but this is perhaps hardly consistent with the con- temptuous manner in which the latter speaks him. An Hyperechius, apparently the same as the friend of Libanius, appears among the correspond- ents of Basil of Caesareia {Epist. 367, or ed. BenedJ 328), and is mentioned by Gregory of Nazianzenl with great praise {Epist. 234, or in Caillau's ed.1 134, written about a. d. 382). A person of thej same name, and perhaps the same person, waii comes rerum privatarum A. D. 397 (Cod, Theod 7. tit 13. § 12 ; 10. tit. 1. § 14) ; and an Hypere-