Hipponicus
- an Athenian, father-in-law of Alcibiades, Nep. Alcib. 2.
1. Hipponicus I., the first of the family on record, is mentioned by Plutarch (Plut. Sol. 15, comp. Pol. Pracec. 13) as one of the three to whom Solon, shortly before the introduction of his σεισάχθεια, B. C. 594, imparted his intention of diminishing the amount of debt while he abstained from interference with landed property. Of this information they are said to have made a fraudulent use, and to have enriched themselves by the purchase of large estates with borrowed money. Böckh thinks, however (Publ. Econ. of Athens, b. iv. ch. 3), that this story against Hipponicus may have originated in the envy of his countrymen.
3. Hipponicus II., surnamed Ammon, son of Callias I., is said to have increased his wealth considerably by the treasures of a Persian general, which had been entrusted to Diomnestus, a man of Eretria, on the first invasion of that place by the Persians. The invading army being all destroyed Diomnestus kept the money; but his heirs, on the second Persian invasion, transmitted it to Hipponicus at Athens, and with him it ultimately remained, as all the captive Eretrians (comp. Hdt. 6.118) were sent to Asia. This story is given by Athenaeus (xii. pp. 536, f., 537, a.) on the authority of Heracleides of Pontus; but it is open to much suspicion from its inconsistency with the account of Herodotus, who mentions only one invasion of Eretria, and that a successful one B. C. 490. (Hdt. 6.99-101.) Possibly the anecdote, like that of Callias λακκότλουτος below, was one of the modes in which the gossips of Athens accounted for the large fortune of the family.
5. Hipponicus III., was the son of Callias II., and with Eurymedon commanded the Athenians in their successful incursion into the territory of Tanagra, B. C. 426. (Thuc. 3.91; Diod. 12.65.) He was killed at the battle of Delium, B. C. 424, where he was one of the generals. (Andoc. c. Alcib. p. 30.) It must therefore have been his divorced wife, and not his widow, whom Pericles married. (Plut. Per. 24; comp. Palm. ad Aristoph. Av. 283; Wesseling, ad Diod. 12.65.) His daughter Hipparete became the wife of Alcibiades, with a dowry of ten talents, the largest, according to Andocides, that had ever before been given. (Andoc. c. Alcib. p. 30; Plut. Alc. 8.) Another daughter of Hipponicus was married to Theodorus, and be came the mother of Isocrates the orator. (Isocr. de Big. p. 353a.) In Plato's "Cratylus," also (pp. 384, 391), Hermogenes is mentioned as a son of Hipponicus and brother of Callias; but, as in p. 391 he is spoken of as not sharing his father's property, and his poverty is further alluded to by Xenophon (Xen. Mem. 2.10), he must have been illegitimate. (See Dict. of Ant. pp. 472, a., a., 598, b.) For Hipponicus, see also Ael. VH 14.16, who tells an anecdote of him with reference to Polycletus the sculptor.
Ἱππόνικος [CALLIAS AND Hipponicus.]
See Callias.
- Athenian envoy to Persia about 450 B.C.: Hdt. 7.151
- an Athenian: Hdt. 6.121