Archeological corroboration for these dates is found on the pedestal of a statue in Delos, inscribed with the names Micciades and Achermus and dated to 550-30 BC. The poet therefore can be safely dated to the second half of the sixth century BC. According to Athenaeus, he was small, thin and surprisingly strong The Byzantine encyclopaedia "Suda", recorded that he was expelled from Ephesus by the tyrants Athenagoras and Comas, then settled in Clazomenae, and that he wrote verses satirising Bupalis and Athenis because they made insulting likenesses of him. A scholiast commenting on Horace's "Epodes" recorded two differing accounts of the dispute with Bupalus, characterized however as "a painter in Clazomenae": Hipponax sought to marry Bupalus's daughter but was rejected "because" of his physical ugliness, and Bupalus portrayed him as ugly "in order" to provoke laughter. According to the same scholiast, Hipponax retaliated in verse so savagely that Bupalus hanged himself.