Extract

5th-cent. Athenian demagogue during and after the *Archidamian War, specially prominent after the death of *Cleon. He is sneered at in comedy for his doubtful paternity and foreign (?slave) origin, but ostraca (see ostracism) show his father had the perfectly normal and reputable Greek name Antiphanes. In 417, 416, or 415 (the date is disputed) an ostracism was held by which Hyperbolus expected to secure the removal of *Alcibiades or *Nicias (1), but they secretly allied against him, and he was himself ostracized. He went to *Samos, where he was murdered by oligarchical revolutionaries. He is condemned by *Thucydides(2) in unusually violent terms (8. 73); but, since he was the constant butt of comic poets, his influence must have been considerable. To some extent he can be rehabilitated by sensible-looking decrees which he proposed or amended (IG 13. 82 and 85). See also demagogues.