Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/466

Rh 154 POLYCLEITUS. unintelligible readings of the older MSS. Tlie Codex Reg. II. gives lavatiiem sesede dalsastantem^ and the Bamberg MS., lavantem se sed aedalsas stantem. Sillig conjectures lavantem se, sed et aliam stantein, and L. Jahn, lavantem se, ad aedem aliam stajitem. (Sillig, Cat. Artif. p. 359, and edition of Pliny, Ic; Jahn, KunstblaU, 1833, No. 37 ; and collation of the Bamberg MS. appended to Sillig's edition of Pliny, vol. v. p. 443.) There are several beautiful statues of Venus, stooping on one knee, in the attitude of washing herself, which are supposed to be copies of the work of Polycharmus. The finest is in the Va- tican, and the next best in the Museum at Paris. {Mus. Pio-Clem. vol. i. pi. 10 ; Clarac, pi. 345, No. 698 ; Miiller, Arch'dol. d. Kunst, § 377, n. 5 ; De7ikm'dler d. Alien Kunst^ vol. iL pi. xxvi. fig. 279.) [P. S.] POLYCLEITUS (UoXvKAeiTos), historical. 1. An officer appointed by Ptolemy to command the fleet sent under Menelaus to Cyprus in b. c. 31 5. From thence Polycleitus was detached with a fleet of fifty ships to support the partisans of Ptolemy and Cassander in the Peloponnese, but, finding on his arrival there that there was no longer occasion for his services, he returned with his fleet to Cilicia, Here he received intelligence that a fleet under Theodotus, and a land force under Perilaus, were advancing to the support of Antigonus, and hastened to intercept them. Both one and the other were surprised and totally defeated ; the two commanders and the whole fleet fell into the hands of Polycleitus, who returned with them to Egypt, where he was received with the utmost distinction by Ptolemy. (Diod. xix. (52, 64.) 2. One of the ofticers left by Epicydes in the command of the garrison of Syracuse when he himself quitted the city. [Epicydes.] They were all put to death in a sedition of the citizens shortly afterwards. (Liv. xxv. 28.) [E. H. B.] POLYCLEITUS (UoMiKKeiTos), literary. 1. Of Larissa, a Greek historian, and one of the nume- rous writers of the history of Alexander the Great. Athenaeus quotes from the eighth book of his histories (xii. p. 539, a.) ; and there are several other quotations from him in Strabo (xi. p. 509, d., XV. pp. 728, a. d., 735, a., xvi. 742, a.), and otiier writers (Plut. Alea;. 46 ; Aelian. N. A. xvi. 41). There are some other passages in which the name of Polycleitus is erroneously put for that of Polycritus of Mende (Diod. xiii. 83 ; Ath. v. p. 206, 6. ; Plin. H. N. xxxi. 2. s. 4.) He may, perhaps, have been the same person as Poly- cleitus of Larissa, the father of Olympias, mo- ther of Antigonus Doson. Most of the extracts from his histories refer to the geography of the countries which Alexander invaded. They are collected, with a notice of the author, by C. Miiller, in his Scriptores Rerum Alexandri Magni, (pp. 129 — 133), in Didot's Scriptorum Graecorum B'Miotheca, Paris, 1846. (See also Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 489, ed. Westermann ; Fabric. Bihl. Grace, vol. iii. p. 49.) 2. An epigrammatic poet, who is mentioned by Meleager (/"rooew. 40), as one of those included in his Garland. None of his epigrams are extant, (Jacobs, A7ith. Graec. vol. xiii. p. 941). [P. S.] POLYCLEITUS (UoKvkXhtvs), a physician of Messina in Sicily, to whom some of the epistles of Phalaris are addressed, and who, therefore (if he be a real personage), may be supposed to have lived POLYCLEITUS. in the sixth century b. c. Having cured the tyrant of a dangerous disease, he received from him some valuable presents, and also succeeded in persuading him to pardon a conspirator against his life (Phalar. ^jo2*t 106, 109). [W.A.G.] POLYCLEITUS (UoXiKXinos, in Latin writers, Polycletus and Polyclitus), artists. Some difficulty has arisen from the mention of two sta- tuaries of this name, whom Pausanias expressly distinguishes from one another, who seem both to have lived about the same period, and who are both said to have been of Argos. (Paus. vi. 6. § 1 .) Moreover, Pliny speaks of the great Polycleitus as a Sicyonian, though several other writers, as well as Pausanias, call him an Argive. {H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 1 9. § 2.) The question which thus arises, as to the number of artists of this name, is very fully dis- cussed by Thiersch, but with more ingeiniity than sound judgment. (^Epochen, pp. 150, 203, &c.) He distinguishes three statuaries of the name (besides a fourth, of Thasos) ; namely, first, Poly- cleitus of Sicyon, the pupil of Ageladas, an artist of the beginning of the period of the perfection of art, and whose works partook much of the old conventional style ; secondly, Polycleitus the elder, of Argos, maker of the celebrated statue in the Heraeum at Argos ; and, thirdly, Polycleitus, the younger, of Argos, the pupil of Naucydes. But the common opinion of other writers is both simpler and sounder, namely that, on account of the close connection between the schools of Argos and Sicyon, the elder Polycleitus might easily have been assigned to both, and, if a more precise explanation be required, that he Avas a native of Sicyon, and was made a citizen of Argos, to which Sicyon was then subject, probably as an honour well earned by his statue in the Heraeum. We know the same thing to have happened with other artists ; and we think that Thiersch himself could hardly have failed to accept this explanation, but for his perverse theory respecting the early date of Pheidias [Pheidias], which imposed upon him the necessity of placing that artist's chief contem- poraries also higher than their true dates. The questions which arise, respecting the assignment of particular works to either of the two Polycleiti of Argos, will be considered in their proper places. 1. Polycleitus, the elder, of Argos, probably by citizenship, and of Sicyon, probably by birth, was one of the most celebrated statuaries of the ancient world ; and was also a sculptor, an architect, and an artist in toreutic. He was the pupil of the great Argive statuary Ageladas, under whom he had Pheidias and Myron for his fellow-disciples. He was somewhat younger than Pheidias, and about the same age as Myron. He is placed by Pliny at the 87th Olympiad, B. c. 431, with Ageladas, Callon, Phradmon, Gorgias, Lacon, Myron, Pythagoras, Scopas, and Parelius {H.N. xxxiv. 8. § 19). An important indication of his date is derived from his great statue in the He- raeum near Argos ; for the old temple of Hera was burnt in 01. 89. 2, b. c. 423 (Thuc. iv. 133 ; Clin- ton, F. H. s. a.) ; and, including the time required to rebuild the temple of the goddess, the statue by Polycleitus in the new temple could scarcely have been finished in less than ten years ; which brintrs his life down to about B. c. 413. Comparing this conclusion with the date given by Pliny, and with the fact that he was a pupil of Ageladas, Polyclei- tus may be safely said to have flourished from