HIPPONAX, of Ephesus, Greek iambic poet. Expelled from Ephesus in 540 B.C. by the tyrant Athenagoras, he took refuge in Clazomenae, where he spent the rest of his life in poverty. He was caricatured by the Chian sculptors Bupalus and Athenis, upon whom he revenged himself by a series of satires. His coarseness, his rude vocabulary, and his numerous allusions to local matters prevented his becoming a favourite in Attica. He was considered the inventor of parody and of a peculiar metre, the scazon or choliambus, which substitutes a spondee for the final iambus of an iambic senarius.
Fragments in Bergk, Poetae lyrici Graeci; see also B. J. Peltzer, De parodica Graecorum poesi (1855), containing an account of Hip ponax and the fragments.