Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/454

Rh 442 POLYAENUS. 3. An Achaean, belonged to tlie party of Archon, Polybius, and the more moderate patriots, who thought that the Achaeans ought not to op- pose the Romans in their war against Perseus, B. c. 171. (Polyb. xxviii. 6. § 9.) 4. Claudius Polyaenus, probably a freed- man of the emperor Claudius, bequeathed a house to this emperor at Prusa. (Plin. Ep. x. 23. 8.75.) 5. Legatus of Bithynia in the time of the younger Pliny. (Plin. Ep. vii. 6. § 6.) POLYAENUS {TloXvaivos), literary. 1. Of Athens, an historical writer, mentioned by Euse- bius. ^Chron. i. p. 25.) 2. Of Lampsacus, the son of Athenodorus, a mathematician and a friend of Epicurus, adopted the philosophical system of his friend, and, although he had previously acquired great reputation as a mathematician, he now maintained with Epicurus the worthlessness of geometry. (Cic. de Fin. i. 6, Acad. ii. 33 ; Diog. Laert. x. 24, ii. 105, with the note of Menagius.) It has been supposed that it was against this Polyaenus that the treatise was written, a fragment of which has been discovered at Herculaneum under the title of Ar^fitiTpiov irpos rds Uokvaivov d-Kopias. (Scholl, GescMchte d. Griech. Liiteratur, vol. ii. p. 209.) 3. Julius Polyaenus, the author of four epigrams in the Greek Anthology (ix. 1, 7, 8, 9, Tauchnitz), in one of which he is called Polyaenus of Sardis, and in the other three Julius Polyaenus. He must be the same as Polyaenus of Sardis, the sophist, spoken of by Suidas, who says (s. v, noAuaij/os), that he lived in the time of the first Caesar, Caius, that is, in the time of Julius Caesar, and wrote Aoyoi SikuvikoI Kal Sikwv tjtol avvv- yopiwv vnoTVTrw(T€is, and ©pidixSov HapdiKOV j8i§Ata y The latter work probably referred to the victories over the Parthians gained by Ven- tidius. 4. The Macedonian, the author of the work on Stratagems in war {2,TpaTr}y^ixaTa), which is still extant, lived about the middle of the second century of the Christian aera. Suidas (s. v.) calls him a rhetorician, and we learn from Polyaenus himself that he was accustomed to plead causes before the emperor. (Praef. lib. ii. and lib. viii.) He dedicated his work to M. Aurelius and Verus, •while they were engaged in the Parthian war, about A. D. 163, at which time, he says, he was too old to accompany them in their campaigns. (Praef. lib. i. ) This work is divided into eight books, of which the first six contain an account of the stratagems of the most celebrated Greek generals, the seventh of those of barbarous or foreign people, and the eighth of the Romans, and illustrious women. Parts, however, of the sixth and seventh books are lost, so that of the 900 stratagems which Polyaenus described, only 833 have come down to us. The work is written in a clear and pleasing style, though somewhat tinged with the artificial rhetoric of the age. It contains a vast number of anecdotes respecting many of the most celebrated men in antiquity, and has preserved many historical facts of which we should otherwise have been ignorant ; but its value as an historical authority is very much dimi- nished by the little judgment which the author evidently possessed, and by our ignorance of the sources from which he took his statements. There is an abridgment of this work in a Greek manu- POLYARATUS, script in the king's library at Paris, containing only fifty-five chapters, but which serves to elu cidate and explain many passages of the original. Polyaenus also wrote several other works, all of which have perished. Suidas has preserved the titles of two, nepi @r§u>v and ToKTjKa ^iSKia 7' ; and Stobaeus makes a quotation from a work of Polyaenus, 'Tirep rod Koivov tccv MaKiBSvup ( Florileff. xliii. (or xli.) § 53), and from another entitled 'Tnep toO Suj/eSpi'oi/ (Ibid. § 41). Poly- aenus likewise mentions his intention of writing a work on the memorable actions ('A^to/tfrj/xoVevTo) of M. Aurelius and L. Verus (Praef. lib. vi.). Polyaenus was first printed in a Latin trans- lation, executed by Justus Vulteius, at Basel, 1549, 8vo. The first edition of the Greek text was published by Casaubon, Lyon, 1589, 12mo. ; the next by Pancratius Maasvicius, Leyden, 1 690, 8vo. ; the third by Samuel Mursinna, Berlin, 1756, 12mo. ; and the last by Coray, Paris, 1809, 8vo. The work has been translated into English byR. Shepherd, London, 1793, 4to. ; into Ger- man by Seybold, Frankfort, 2 vols. 8vo. 1793 and 1794, and by Blume, Stuttgart, 1834, 16mo. (Fa- bric. Bibl. Grace, vol. v. p. 321, &c. ; Scholl, GescMchte der Griech. Litteratur^ vol. ii. p. 716; Kronbiegel, De Dictionis Polyaeneae Virtutibus et Vitiis, Lipsiae, 1770 ; Dxoys>en, GescMchte des Hel- lejiismus, vol. i. p. 685.) 5. Of Sardis. [See No. 3.] POLYANTHES (TloXvivQris), a Corinthian, who commanded a Peloponnesian fleet, with which he fought an indecisive battle against the Athenian fleet under Diphilus in the gulf of Corinth in b. c. 413. (Thuc. vii. 34.) He is again mentioned in B. c. 395, as one of the leading men in Corinth, who received "money from Timocrates the Rhodian, whom the satrap Tithraustes sent into Greece in order to bribe the chief men in the different Greek states to make war upon Sparta, and thus necessi- tate the recal of Agesilaus from his victorious career in Asia (Xen. Hell. iii. 5. S 1 ; Pans. iii. 9. §8). POLYARATUS (noAuaporos), a Rhodian, one of the leaders of the party in that state favour- able to Perseus, during the second Macedonian War. According to Polybius he was a man of an osten- tatious and extravagant character, and had, in con- sequence, become loaded with debts, which he hoped to pay off by the king's assistance. At the commencement of the war (b. c. 171) he united with Deinon in endeavouring, though unsuccess- fully, to induce the Rhodians to refuse the as- sistance of their ships to the Roman praetor C. Lucretius ; but shortly afterwards he supported with success the proposition made to allow Perseus to ransom the Macedonian captives who had fallen into the hands of the Rhodians (Polyb. xxvii. 6, 11). He continued throughout the war to main- tain an active correspondence with Perseus ; and in the third year of the contest (b. c. 169), matters having apparently taken a turn more fovourable to the king, the Rhodians were induced, by his efforts and those of Deinon, to give a favourable audience to the ambassadors of Perseus and Gentius, and to interpose their influence at Rome to put an end to the war (Liv. xliv. 23, 29). But this step gave great offence to the Romans, and after the defeat of Perseus, Polyaratus hastened to provide for his safety by flight. He took refuge at the court of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, but his surrender being