Hyperbolus

Hyperbolus (Ancient Greek: Ὑπέρβολος, Hyperbolos; died 412/411 BC) was an Athenian politician active during the first half of the Peloponnesian War, coming to particular prominence after the death of Cleon. In 416 or 415 BC, he was the last Athenian to be ostracised.

Life

A fragment of a document by 4th-century BC Greek historian Theopompus suggests that Hyperbolus was the son of Chremes, but surviving ostraka prove that his father's name was actually Antiphanes.¹ Some ancient sources claim that Hyperbolus was from a slave family, though the fact that his father had a Greek name makes this unlikely.²

Hyperbolus was a demagogue, and an allusion in Aristophanes' play The Knights suggests that he, like Cleon (another demagogue of the late fifth century), supported an ambitious Athenian foreign policy.³ The precise details of his political career are unknown,⁴ but he seems to have been a member of the boule and possibly a trierarch.⁵

Hyperbolus was a frequent target of the authors of Old Comedy. The first to satirise him was supposedly Hermippus; Plato the comic poet and Eupolis wrote plays about him; and there are allusions to Hyperbolus in seven of Aristophanes' surviving plays, from in 425 to in 405 BC. By contrast, only a single "contemptuous" reference to Hyperbolus is found in Thucydides.