14. Ancient Greek Troll Got Trolled So Bad, He Killed Himself
Trolling that escalates into something worse has been around for ages. The Ancient Greeks, in particular, were big on trolling which sparked off flame wars. A good example is a 6th century BC flame war between Buaplus of Chios and Hipponax of Ephesus, that ended with the loser committing suicide. Bupalus was a famous sculptor whose marble statues, typically of draped female figures such as Artemis, The Graces, or Fortune, were in exceptionally high demand. Bupalus was also a world-class troll, who got into a tiff with an even bigger troll. Hipponax of Ephesus was a poet, but not a high-brow one. Instead, he specialized in stuff like “There are two days when a woman is a pleasure: the day one marries her and the day one carries out her dead body“, and diss poetry. Hipponax had a gargoyle face to match his personality.
The beef began when Hipponax sought to marry Bupalus’ daughter, only for her father to reject him, sparing the girl from life with somebody as ugly on the inside as he was on the outside. Bupalus then rubbed salt in the wound by caricaturing the unsightly Hipponax in some of his sculptures. Hipponax responded with verses that accused Bupalus of being a literal mother****er, and went into graphic details about the sex acts the sculptor supposedly engaged in with his mother. Unable to stand the ensuing public mockery, Bupalus hanged himself. His fate became a byword, as illustrated by a line from ancient Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes: “Someone ought to give them a Bupalus or two on the jaw—that might shut them up for a bit“.
