Hipponax, Boupalos, and the Conventions of the Psogos

Abstract

Students of the Greek Iambos continue to dispute whether the poets' targets were fictional or real characters. Most recently the Cologne Archilochos has challenged scholars to square the received biographical tradition about the poet with its "new" evidence. Is the "I" of the poem Archilochos himself? Are the characters generic stock-figures, each bearing an appropriately significant name: Lycambes the "Wolf-walker", Neobule, the woman "of New Plan," for example?1