Hipponax of Ephesus was an iambic poet active in the sixth century BCE. Exiled from his native city, he settled in Clazomenae. His poetry constructs a persona defined by poverty and misfortune. Ancient sources report he used his verse for vicious personal attacks, most famously claiming he drove the sculptor Bupalus to suicide.
His work survives only in fragments. Hipponax is credited with inventing the scazon, or choliambic metre, a limping iambic trimeter suited to his abusive tone. Composed in the Ionic dialect, the fragments feature explicit and scatological invective, and themes of beggary and theft.
Hipponax, alongside Archilochus, established invective as a core poetic mode in the Greek iambic tradition of blame poetry. His choliambic metre influenced later satirical poetry, including the Hellenistic mimes of Herodas. His fragments record the coarse, personal dimensions of Archaic Greek literature.
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