Hermippus (; fl. 5th century BC) was the one-eyed
Athenian writer of the
Old Comedy who flourished during the
Peloponnesian War. He was the son of Lysis, and the brother of the comic poet Myrtilus. He was younger than
Telecleides and older than
Eupolis and
Aristophanes. According to the
Suda, he wrote forty plays, and his chief actor was Simeron, according to the
scholiast of Aristophanes. The titles and fragments of nine of his plays are preserved. He was a bitter opponent of
Pericles, whom he accused (probably in the
Moirai) of being a bully and a coward, and of carousing with his boon companions while the
Lacedaemonians were invading
Attica. He also accused
Aspasia of impiety and offences against morality, and her acquittal was only secured by the tears of Pericles (
Plutarch,
Pericles, 32). In the "Female Bread-Sellers", he attacked the
demagogue Hyperbolus. The "Mat-Carriers" contains many parodies of
Homer.