Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/447

Rh POLEMON. speculations ; his character was grave and severe ; and he took pride in displaying the mastery which he had acquired over emotions of every sort. He was a close follower of Xenocrates in all things, and an intimate friend of Crates and Grantor, who were his disciples, as well as Zeno and Arcesilas ; Crates was his successor in the Academy. In literature he most admired Homer and Sophocles, and he is said to have been the author of the remark, that Homer is an epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a tragic Homer. He left, according to Diogenes, several treatises, none of Avhich were extant in the time of Suidas. There is, however, a quotation made by Clemens Alexandrinus, either from him or from another philosopher of the same name, ev roh vepX tov Kara (pvcxiv fiiov {Strom, vii. p. 117), and another passage (Strom. ii. p. 410), upon happiness, which agrees precisely with the statement of Cicero (de Fin. iv. 6), that Polemon placed the summum bonum in living ac- cording to the laws of nature. (Diog. Laert. iv. ] 6'— 20 ; Suid. s. v. ; Plut. de Adul. et Amic. 32, p. 71, e. ; Lucian. Bis Accusal. 16, vol. ii. p. 811 ; Ath. ii. p. 44, e. ; Cic. Acad. i. .9, ii. 35, 42, de Orat. iii. 18, de Fin. ii. 6, 11, iv. 2, 6, 16, 18, v. 1, 5, 7, et alib.; Herat. Serm. ii. 3. 253, fol. ; Val. Max. vi. 9 ; Menag. ad Diog. La'drt. I. c. ; Fabric. Dill. Graec. vol. iii. p. 183 ; comp. p. 323, n. hhh.) 2. Another Platonic philosopher, the disciple of Plotinus. (Porphyr. l^lot. Vit. ; Fabric, l. c. ; Clinton, F. H. sui) anno B. c. 315, vol. ii. 3d ed.) 3. Of Athens by citizenship, but by birth either of Ilium, or Samos, or Sicyon, a Stoic philosopher and an eminent geographer, sumamed 6 irepi- 7777JT7JS, was the son of Euegetes, and a contempo- rary of Aristophanes of Byzantium, in the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, at the beginning of the second century B.C. (Suid. s.v. ; Ath. vi. p. 234 ; Clin- ton, F. H. vol. iii. sub ami. B.C. 199). In philo- sophy he was a disciple of Panaetius. He made extensive journeys through Greece, to collect mate- rials for his geographical works, in the course of which he paid particular attention to the inscrip- tions on votive offerings and on columns, whence he obtained the surname of STTjXo/coTras. (Ath. I. c. ; Casaub. ltd loc.) As the collector of these inscriptions, he was one of the earlier contributors to the Greek Anthology., and he wrote a work ex- pressly, Ylepi tQv KUTci TToAety iin'ypafjifxa.Twv (Ath. X. pp. 436, d., 442, e.) ; besides which, other works of his are mentioned, upon the votive offerings and monuments in the Acropolis of Athens, at Lacedaemon, at Delphi, and elsewhere, which no doubt contained copies of numerous epi- grams. Hence Jacobs infers that, in all probability, his works formed a chief source of the Garland of Meleager {Animadv. in Anih. Graec. vol. i. Prooem. pp. xxxiv. XXXV.). Athenaeus and other writers make very numerous quotations from his works, the titles of which it is unnecessary to give at length. They are chiefly descriptions of different parts of Greece ; some are on the paintings pre- served in various places, and several are contro- versial, among which is one against Eratosthenes. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 184 ; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 159, foil. ed. Westermann ; Clin- ton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 524, where a list of his works is given.) 4. Antonius, a highly celebrated sophist and rhetorician, who flourished under Trajan, Hadrian, POLEMON. 435 and the first Antoninus, and was in high favour with the two former emperors. ( Suid. s. v. ; Phi- lostr. Vit. Soph. p. 532.) He is placed at the six- teenth year of Hadrian, A. D. 133, by Eusebius (Chron.). His life is related at considerable length by Philostratus ( Vit. Sophist, ii. 25, pp. 530 — 544). He was born of a consular family, at Laodiceia, but spent the greater part of his life at Smyrna, the people of which city conferred upon him at a very early age the highest honours, in return for which he did much to promote their prosperity, especially by his influence with the emperors. Nor, in performing these services, did he neglect his native city Laodiceia. An interesting account of his relations with the emperors Hadrian a)id Antoninus is given by Philostratus (pp. 533, 534). Among the sophists and rhetoricians, whom he heard, were Timocrates, Scopelianus, Dion Chry- sostom and Apollophanes. His most celebrated disciple was Aristeides. His chief contemporaries were Herodes Atticus, Marcus Byzantinus, Diony- sius Milesius, and Favorinus, who was his chief rival. Among his imitators in subsequent times was S. Gregory Nazianzen. His style of oratory was imposing rather than pleasing ; and his cha- racter was haughty and reserved. During the latter part of his life he was so tortured by the gout, that he resolved to put an end to his existence ; he had himself shut up in the tomb of his ancestors at Laodiceia, where he died of hunger, at the age of sixty-five. The exact time of his death is not known ; but it must have been some time after a. d. 143, as he was heard in that year by Verus. The only extant work of Polemon is the funeral orations for Cynaegeirus and Callimachus, the ge- nerals who fell at Marathon, which are supposed to be pronounced by their fathers, each extolling his own son above the other. Philostratus men- tions several others of his rhetorical compositions, the subjects of which are chiefly taken from Athe- nian history, and an oration which he pronounced, by command of Hadrian, at the dedication of the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens, in a. d. 135. His x6yoi iirLTd<pLoi were first printed by H. Stephanus, in his collection of the declamations of Polemon, Himerius, and other rhetoricians, Paris, 1547, 4to., afterwards by themselves in Greek, Paris, 1586, 4to. ; and in Greek and Latin, To- losae, 1637, 8vo. The latest and best edition is that of Caspar and Conrad Orelli, Lips. 1819, 8vo. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vi. pp. 2 — 4 ; Clinton, Fasti Romani, s. a. 133, 135, 143.) There is a coin of Hadrian, bearing the inscription nOAEMnN, ANE0HKE.CMTPNAIOIC. (Rasche, Lex-icon Rei Num. s. v. Polemon ; Eckhel, Docir. Num. Vet. vol. ii. p. 562). This coin belongs to a class which Eckhel has explained in a dissertation (vol. iv. c. 19, pp. 368 — 374). The question re- specting the identity of the sophist with the writer, who forms the subject of the follov^ing article, is discussed by Fr. Passovv ( Ueber Polemon''s Zeitalter, in the Archiv. ftir Philologie und Paedagogik, 1825, vol.i. pp. 7—9, Vermischte Schri/ten, p. 137.) [P. S.] PO'LEMON (noAeVw"), the author of a short Greek work on Physiognomy, which is still extant. Nothing is known of the events of his life, but from some expressions that he uses (<?. g. the word et'SwAo'Suros, i. 6. p. 197) it has been supposed that he was a Christian. With respect to his date it can only be stated that he must have lived in or before the third century after F F 2