Hippōnax in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

（Ἱππώναξ). A Greek iambic poet of Ephesus, who about B.C. 540 was banished to Clazomenae by Athenagoras and Comas, tyrants of his native city. At Clazomenae, two sculptors, Bupalus (Hor. Epod. vi. 14) and Athenis, made the little, thin, ugly poet ridiculous in caricature; but he avenged himself in such bitter iambic verses that, like Lycambes and his daughter, who were persecuted by Archilochus (q.v.), they hanged themselves. The burlesque character of the poems which he composed in the Ionic dialect found an appropriate form in his favourite metre, which was probably invented by himself. This metre is known as the choliambus ("the halting iambus"), or the scazon ("limping"), from its having a spondee or trochee in the last place, instead of the usual iambic foot. He is also reckoned among the very first to produce parodies of epic poetry, and in his satire he spared neither his own parents nor the gods. Of his poems we have only a few fragments, which are collected by Bergk in his Poetae Lyrici Graeci (4th ed. 1878).

Read More about Hippōnax in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities