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He is said to have excelled all in addressing the people; and by some critics he is ranked above Demosthenes. Seventy-seven speeches are current under his name, fifty-two of which are genuine.Only small fragments of these were preserved until, at various times in the nineteenth century, six more or less complete orations were discovered in Egyptian papyrus manuscripts. He was also very prone to sexual indulgence, so that he turned his son out of the house and brought in Myrrhina, the most expensive prostitute, kept Aristagora in Peiraeus, and at his own estate in Eleusis kept the Theban girl Phila, whom he had ransomed for twenty minas. He used to walk in the Fish-market every day.Another comic gibe against a public man supposed to be a gourmand. Athenaeus viii. 341 ff. quotes from the Delos and Icarians of Timocles gossip of this kind against Hypereides. And, as it is indeed reasonable to suppose, it was because he had been intimate also with PhrynêThe traditional text is certainly corrupt; Cf. critical notes. The inference seems to have been drawn from the orator’s amatory record that his advocacy of Phrynê at her famous trial was due to an intimacy with her. An advocate was never examined with the defendant. the courtesan that when she was on trial for impiety he became her advocate; for he makes this plain himself at the beginning of his speech.Explained by Athenaeus xiii. 590 d ἐν τῷ ὑπὲρ Φρύνης λόγῳ Υπερείδης ὁμολογῶν ἐρᾶν τῆς γυναικός. Hypereides’ speech was translated into Latin by Messala Corvinus (Quintilian x. 5. 2). And when she was likely to be found guilty, he led the woman out into the middle of the court and, tearing off her clothes, displayed her breasts. When the judges saw her beauty, she was acquitted.This version is foudn also in Athenaeus xiii. 590 e, but the comic poet Poseidippus in his Ephesian Lady (ibid. 591 e; Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 339) attributes Phrynê’s acquittal to her own arts. He quietly compiled accusations against Demosthenes and the fact became known; for once, when he was ill, Demosthenes came to his house to visit him and found him with the document against himself in his hand; and when Demosthenes was angry, Hypereides said, It will do you no harm while you are my friend, but if you become my enemy, it will prevent your doing anything against me. He also proposed a decree conferring honours upon Iolas, who was supposed to have given Alexander the poison.The belief that Alexander died of poison was apparently unfounded. He took part with Leosthenes in the Lamian WarIn 323-322 b.c. after Alexander’s death, when the Greeks under Leosthenes besieged the Macedonian Antipater in Lamia near Thermopylae. A large part of Hypereides’ funeral oration is preserved. and delivered the funeral oration for the fallen in marvellous fashion. When Philip was preparing to sail against Euboea, and the Athenians were afraid, he assembled forty triremes by private contributions, and in his own name and his son’s he gave two triremes, the first contribution made. And when a dispute arose with the Delians as to which people should have control of the sanctuary, although Aeschines was chosen Athenian advocate, the senate of the Areopagus elected Hypereides; and his speech is the one entitled The Delian. He was also an envoy to the Rhodians. And when envoys came from Antipater and praised their sender as a good man, in replying to them he said, We know that he is good, but we do not want a good master. It is said that in addressing the public he did not employ the actor’s art, that he merely related the facts of the case and did not bore the jurors even with these. He was sent also to the Eleans to defend the athlete Callippus against the charge of having used corruption in the contest, and he won his case; but when he brought a suit against the grant of a gift for Phocion, which Meidias, son of Meidias, of the deme Anagyros, proposed in the archonship of Xenias,An archon Xenias is unknown. Euxenippus, suggested by Schafer, was archon in 305-304 b.c., but Hypereides was then dead. Possibly the archon Archias, 346-345 b.c., is intended, in which case the gift for Phocion may have had some connexion with the battle of Tamynae. on the twentyfourth day of Gamelion, he was defeated.
