Many centuries after the waxing of the abusive lexicon that this study explores, the Byzantine commentator Eustathius extrapolated a connection to Hipponax from an incident in book 23 of the Iliad. There Ajax the son of Oïleus loses a foot race to Odysseus and ends up on the ground with a mouth full of cow dung (ἐν δ᾿ ὄνθου βοέου πλῆτο στόμα τε ῥῖνας τε, 23.777). Upon receiving second prize (an ox, fittingly enough), he spits the dung from his mouth (ὄνθων ἀποπτύων) and says, “Damn, the goddess tripped me up; she always stands like a mother by Odysseus and cares for him” (ὢ πόποι, ἦ μ᾿ ἔβλαψε θεὰ πόδας, ἣ τὸ πάρος περ/ μήτηρ ὣς ᾿Οδυσῆι παρίσταται ἠδ᾿ ἐπαρήγει). His audience of fellow warriors laughs happily (ἡδὺ γέλασσαν) at his remark, and the potential for shaming and conflict ends there (780–84).

Eustathius remarks, “… a mouth spitting like this might be called an opening of dung and filth (ὄνθου … καὶ βορβόρου ὀπή), a combination that … the harsh-tongued Hipponax used in insulting a woman as a ‘crap hole’ [βορβορόπην], mocking her for her unclean child-bearing” (iv.835.13 Valk). This chain of associations points to the continuation of an awareness about the nature of insult that extended from Homer and the iambic poets into late antiquity.