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POLYBIUS

1521

POLYNESIA

horsemanship and a great deal of practice.

Polo, Marco, the greatest of medieval travelers, was born at Venice about 1254. As a youth he accompanied his father and uncle to the court of Kubla Khan, the ruler of China, then known as Cathay. Pleasing the Khan, he remained for some time in his dominions, learning the language and traveling over the kingdom in the Khan's service. All three Polos amassed wealth and returned, after many adventures, to Venice. In the war between Venice and Genoa Marco was captured by the Genoese and, while in prison, dictated the account of his travels now found in libraries to a fellow prisoner. His stories were very incredulously received by the people of his time. After his liberation he returned to Venice, where he died in 1324, and was buried in the Church of St. Lorenzo. See his work, edited by Henry Yule.

Polybius (po-lWi-us], the Greek historian," was born about 204 B. C. at Megalopolis in Arcadia. He was one of the 1,000 Achasans who, after the conquest of Macedonia in 168 B. C., were sent to Rome on the pretext that the Achaeans had failed to assist the Romans against Perseus. At Rome he was the guest of J^milius Paulus, and became the close friend of his son Scipio ^Emilianus, accompanying him in his military expeditions. In 151 B. C. the surviving exiles were permitted to return to Greece; but Polybius followed Scipio in his African campaign, and was present at the destruction of Carthage in 146 B. C. But the war between the Romans and Achaeans afterward summoned him to Greece, where he arrived soon after the taking of Corinth; and so grateful were his people for his services in securing favorable terms from their conquerors that they erected statues in his honor in his native city and elsewhere. It was about this time that he undertook the writing of his great historical work, the design of which is to show how and why all the civilized countries of the world fell under the dominion of Rome. He died about 125 B. C.

Pplycarp (p&l'i-karp}, one of the early Christian fathers, was born about 69 A. D., probably of Christian parents. Polycarp's fife is a very important one from the fact that he bridges the period between the age of the original apostles and that of his own disciple Irenseus. Whether he was actually appointed bishop at Smyrna by the Apostle John may well be doubted, but he certainly occupied a prominent position in the church, from his earliest manhood. This is the tribute that Irenseus pays to his memory: "I can tell the very place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse. Whatsoever things he had heard from John and others about the Lord he would relate as having received them from eyewitnesses."

Toward the close of his life Polycarp visited Rome, and on his return to Smyrna became the victim of a persecution of the Christians. Being offered his, life by the proconsul if he would renounce Christ, he answered: "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me only good. Why should I deny Him now?" The games being over, death by fire was substituted for death by wild beasts, the mob eagerly gathering fuel for the flames (A. D. 155). The only writing left by Polycarp is an epistle to the Philippians, the authenticity of which, though seriously questioned, may be considered as clearly established.

Polycrates (po-Uk'ra-tez), tyrant of Samos from 536 to 522 B. C. After conquering several islands of the archipelago and even some towns on the Asiatic mainland, he waged a successful war against the inhabitants of Miletus and defeated their allies, the Thesbians, in a great sea-fight. His alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, proves the importance of this insular prince in the eyes even of great monarchs. Amasis broke off the alliance, and when Cambyses the Persian invaded Egypt in 525 B. C., Poly-crates sent forty ships in which he placed all the Samians who were hostile to his government, hoping that they would never return. But they soon mutinied against the Persian authority, and sailed back to Samos for the purpose of overthrowing Polycrates. Failing in this effort, they proceeded to Sparta and formed an alliance with the Spartans and the Corinthians. A triple force of Samians, Spartans and Corinthians besieged Samos in vain, and Polycrates became more firmly established in his authority than ever. But evil fortune overtook him at last. His deadly enemy, Oroetes, satrap of Sardis, enticed him to visit Magnesia, where he was seized and crucified.

Polyembryony (pol'i-em'bri-o-ny) (in plants), a name applied to any case in which more than one embryo occurs in a seed. This is a thing of rare occurrence, although quite a number of embryos start in the seeds of gymnosperms. As a rule, when several embryos begin, one of them sooner or later develops at the expense of the others, which gradually disappear. Now and then, however, more than one embryo is found both in gymnosperms and angio-sperms, the extra embryo having arisen either from an extra fertilized egg, as is probably true in the gymnosperms, or as the budding outgrowth from some part oat-side of the egg,often the case in orange seeds ' Polynesia (pfil'i-ne'slii-a}, (from Greek polys for many and nesos for island), a term applied to the islands of the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, except Japan, the Kuriles, Aleutians, Queen Charlotte, Vancouver, Reviila-gigedo and Galapagos, which are geograph-