Alcibiades, now a popular diplomat, has forced…
417 BCE
Alcibiades, now a popular diplomat, has forced a break with Sparta and formed Athenian alliances with Argos, Mantinea and Tegea, all formerly in the Spartan camp.
In a successful bid to avoid ostracism, Alcibiades allies with Nicias against Hyperbolus, who follows in the demagogic footsteps of Cleon as champion of the common people, exercising power solely through speech in the assembly.
Unlike Cleon, Hyperbolos does not have a noble background, appearing to be one of the first Athenian political leaders lacking aristocratic origins.
It appears that like other such leaders he was wealthy.
He is referred to by Aristophanes in the play Peace (421) as having been a lampmaker previous to being a political figure.
Sometime in the years 417-415 BCE he is ostracized, perhaps the last person to be subject to the practice.
Accounts of this ostracism by Plutarch describe a complex struggle with Nicias and Alcibiades, where Hyperbolos tried to bring about the ostracism of one of this pair but they combined their influence to induce the people to expel Hyperbolos instead.
The validity of Plutarch's take on these events, however, is hard to gauge.
Hyperbolus had gone to live on the island of Samos where he was murdered in 411 BCE by oligarchic revolutionaries around the time of the coup of the 400 that for several months suppressed the democracy at Athens.