Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/446

Rh 434 POLEMON. V. 75) as being appointed by Antony to the sove- reignty of a part of Cilicia, and who subsequently became king of Pontus [Polemon I.] The grounds on which this identity is denied by Eckhel (vol. iii. p. 63) are not satisfactory. (Visconti, Icono- graphie Grecque, vol. iii. p. 5, &c.) [E. H. B.] PO'LEMON (noAe^uwj/), the name of two kings of Pontus and the Bosporus. 1. PoLKMON I., was the son of Zenon, the orator of Laodiceia, and it was as a reward for the services rendered by his father as well as himself that he was appointed by Antony in b. c. 39 to the government of a part of Cilicia. ( Appian, B. C. V. 75 ; Strab. xii. p. 578.) At a subsequent period he obtained from the triumvir in exchange for this principality the more important govern- ment of Pontus with the title of king. The pre- cise date of this change is unknown, but Polemon is already called by Dion Cassius king of Pontus in B. c. 36, in which year he co-operated with Antony in his campaign against the Parthians. On this occasion he shared in the defeat of Appius Statianus, and was taken prisoner by the Parthian king, but allowed to ransom himself, and restored to liberty. (Dion Cass. xlix. 25 ; Plut. Ant 38.) In B. c. 35 he was employed by Antony to nego- tiate with the Median king Artavasdes, whom he succeeded in detaching from the alliance of Parthia, and gaining over to that of Rome : a service for which he was subsequently rewarded by the triumvir by the addition to his dominions of the Lesser Armenia. (Dion Cass. xlix. 33, 44.) But though he thus owed his elevation to Antony he was fortunate enough not to share in his fall, and although he had sent an auxiliary force to the assistance of his patron in B. c. 30, shortly before the battle of Actium, he was able to make his peace with Octavian, who confirmed him in his kingdom, and some years afterwards bestowed on him the honorary appellations of a friend and ally of the Roman people. (Plut. Ant. 61 ; Strab. xii. p. 578 ; Dion Cass. liii. 25.) At a subsequent period (about B.C. 16) he was intrusted by Agrippa with the charge of reducing the kingdom of Bosporus, which had been usurped by Scri- bonius after the death of Asander. The usurper was put to death by the Bosporans before the arrival of Polemon, who notwithstanding some op- position established himself in the sovereignty of the country, in which he was confirmed, first by Agrippa and then by Augustus himself. (Dion Cass. liv. 24.) His reign after this was long and prosperous : his dominions comprised, besides Pontus itself, Colchis and the other provinees, as far as the kingdom of the Bosporus, the confines of which last he extended to the river Tanais, and destroyed the city of that name, which had ven- tured to throw off his yoke. (Strab. xi. pp. 493, 495, 499.) But having engaged in an expedition against the barbarian tribe of the Aspurgians (who inhabited the mountains above Phanagoria) he was not only defeated by them, but taken prisoner, and immediately put to death. ( Id. xi. p. 495, xii. p. 556.) The date of this event is unknown ; but it appears from an inscription that he must have been still on the throne as late as B. c. 2- (Bockh, Corp. Inscr. vol. ii. No. 3524 ; Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 369.) Polemon had been twice married : first to Dy- narais, a daughter of Phamaces, and grand- daughter of Mithridates the Great, by whom he POLEMON. appears to have had no children. (Dion Cass. liv. 24) ; and secondly to Pythodoris, who succeeded him on the throne. By her he left two sons, Po- lemon II., and Zenon king of Armenia, and one daughter who was married to Cotys king of Thrace. (Strab. xii. p. 556 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 56.) 2. Polemon IL, was a son of the preceding and of Pythodoris. During the lifetime of his mother he was content to remain in a private station, while he assisted her in the administration of her dominions : but in a. d. 39, he was raised by Caligula to the sovereignty not only of Pontus, which had been held by Pythodoris, but of the Bosporus also. This last was, however, after- wards taken from him by Claudius, who assigned it to Mithridates, while he gave Polemon a portion of Cilicia in its stead, a.d. 41. (Dion Cass. lix. 12, Ix. 8.) He appears to have been a man of a weak character, and in A. d. 48 allowed himself to be persuaded by Berenice, the widow of Herod, king of Chalcis, to adopt the Jewish religion in order that he might marry that princess, who possessed vast wealth. But Berenice had sought this mar- riage only as a cloak for her illicit amours [Be- renice, No. 2.] : it was in consequence soon dissolved, and Polemon ceased to profess Judaism (Joseph. Ant. xx. 7. § 3). At a subsequent period he was induced by Nero to abdicate the throne, and Pontus was reduced to the condition of a Roman province. This appears to have taken place about the year a. d. 62 (Suet. Nero, 18 ; Eutrop. vii. 14 ; Aur. Vict, de Cues. 5. § 2 ; Eck- hel, vol. ii. p. 873). As the city of Polemonium on the Euxine (Scynm. Ch. Fr. i. 177; Steph. Byz. s. V. HoKeiuLoiyiov) is not mentioned by Strabo, it appears certain that we must ascribe its founda- tion to Polemon II., and not to his father. Con- cerning the coins of the two Polemons, see Cary, Hist, des Bois de Thrace et du Bosphore, 4to. Paris, 1 752, and Eckhel, vol. ii. pp. 368—373. [E. H. B.] COIN OF POLEMON II. PO'LEMON (noAeVwi/), literary. 1. Of Athens, an eminent Platonic philosopher, and for some time the head of the Academy, was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political dis- tinction. In his youth, Polemon was extremely profligate ; but one day, when he was about thirty, on his bursting into the school of Xeno- crates, at the head of a band of revellers, his attention was so arrested by the discourse, which the master continued calmly in spite of the inter- ruption, and which chanced to be upon temperance, that he tore off his garland and remained an atten- tive listener, and from that day he adopted an abstemious course of life, and continued to fre- quent the school, of which, on the death of Xeno- crates, he became the head, in 01. 116, B. c. 315. According to Eusebius {Chron.) he died in 01. 126.4, B. c. 273. Diogenes also says that he died at a great age, and of natural decay. He esteemed the object of philosophy to be, to exer- cise men in things and deeds, not in dialectic