Hippo (/ˈhɪpoʊ/; Ancient Greek: Ἵππων, Hippon; fl.
He is variously described as coming from Rhegium,[1] Metapontum,[2] Samos,[3] and Croton,[4] and it is possible that there was more than one philosopher with this name.
He was accused of impiety by the comic poet Cratinus in his Panoptae,[7] and, according to Clement of Alexandria, Hippo supposedly ordered the following couplet to be inscribed on his tomb:[8] Behold the tomb of Hippo, whom in death Fate made an equal of the immortal gods.The classical philologist Michael Hendry has suggested an alternative translation of the epitaph that underscores the argument for Hippo's atheism:[9] This is the tomb of Hippo, Whom Fate made just as dead as the immortal gods.According to Hippolytus, Hippo held water and fire to be the primary elements, with fire originating from water, and then developing itself by generating the universe.
[10] Most of the accounts of his philosophy suggest that he was interested in biological matters.
[1] A medieval scholium on Aristophanes' The Clouds attributes to Hippo the view that the heavens were like the dome (πνιγεύς) of an oven covering the Earth.