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Hypereides was the son of Glaucippus and grandson of Dionysius, of the deme of Collytê. He had a son, Glaucippus, named after his grandfather, who was an orator and writer of speeches.In the Athenian courts of law the parties to a suit were obliged to speak in person, therefore those who were not sure of their own ability hired others to write their speeches, which they learned by heart and delivered. He in turn had a son Alphinous. After being a pupil of the philosopher Plato, along with Lycurgus, and of the orator Isocrates, Hypereides entered upon public life at Athens at the time when Alexander was interfering in the affairs of Greece. And he spoke in opposition to him concerning the generals whose surrender he demanded of the Athenians and concerning the triremes. He also advised against disbanding the mercenary force at Taenarum under the command of Chares, since he was well disposed towards that general. At first he pleaded in suits at law in return for a fee. And since he was believed to have shared the Persian fundsThe comic poets of the time were very free with such insinuations, e.g. Timocles in his Delos (Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 432) mentions both Demosthenes and Hypereides. with Ephialtes, and was elected trierarch when Philip was besieging Byzantium, he was sent out to aid the Byzantines; and in that year he bore the expense of a chorus,Such offices or liturgies were imposed upon wealthy men only, and the fact that he undertook one may have led to the belief that he partook of the Persian funds, or that belief may have led to the imposition of the offices. when others were released from all contributions to the public service. He also proposed honours for Demosthenes, and when suit was brought by Diondas on the ground that the decree was contrary to law, he was acquitted. Although he was a friend of Demosthenes, Lysicles, Lycurgus, and their associates, he did not remain so to the end; but when Lysicles and Lycurgus were dead and Demosthenes was being tried for receiving bribes from Harpalus, he was chosen from all the orators (for he alone was unbribed) and brought the accusation against him. And when he was brought to trial by Aristogeiton for illegal conduct in proposing a decree after the battle of Chaeroneia to grant citizenship to the resident aliens, to set the slaves free, and to put the sacred objects, the children, and the women in Peiraeus for safekeeping, he was acquitted. And when certain persons blame d him for having disregarded many laws in his decree, he said, The shields of the Macedonians cast a shadowThe shadow of the shields made him fail to see the laws (taking παριδόντα literally). over my eyes, and It was not I, but the battle of Chaeroneia, that proposed the decree. After this, however, Philip was frightened and granted permission to remove the bodies of the slain, though before that he had refused it to the heralds who came from Lebadeia. Later, however, after the battle of Crannon,After the death of Alexander the Great the Greeks revolted, but they lacked leadership, and when they were defeated in an engagement at Crannon, Thessaly, in August 322 b.c., the Greek states came to terms separately with Antipater. when his surrender was demanded by Antipater and the people was on the point of surrendering him, he fled from the city to Aegina along with those against whom decrees had been passed. Here he met Demosthenes and excused himself for his disagreement with him. After leaving Aegina he was seized forcibly by Archias,See above, p. 427, note b. nicknamed The Exile-Hunter (a Thurian by birth, at first an actor, but at that time an assistant of Antipater), in the temple of PoseidonAt Hermionê. while clinging to the statue of the god. He was brought to Antipater at Corinth, and when put to the torture he bit off his tongue that he might not be able to utter any secrets of his native city. And in this way he died, on the ninth day of the month of Pyanepsion. But HermippusMüller, Frag. Hist. Graec. i. p. 50. says that he went to Macedonia, where his tongue was cut out and he was thrown out unburied, and that Alphinous, who was his cousin (or, as some say, the son of his son Glaucippus), obtained possession of the body by the aid of a physician named Philopeithes, burned it and brought the bones to Athens to his relatives contrary to the decrees of the Athenians and the Macedonians; for they had ordered, not only that he be exiled, but that he be not even buried in his own country. And others say that he died at Cleonae after being brought there with the rest, where his tongue was cut out and he perished in the manner related above; and that his relatives obtained the bones and buried them with his ancestors before the gates of the Hippades,At Athens, probably south-east from the Acropolis. as Heliodorus says in the third book of his work On Monuments. But now the monument has fallen in ruins and cannot be identified.
