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 POLYANTHUS POLYCLETUS 685 ernment, near the junction of the rivers Pol- tavka and Vorskla, 445 m. S. S. W. of Moscow ; pop. in 1867, 31,852. Is is surrounded by a wall and defended by a citadel near the centre of the town. It has a cathedral, 11 church- es, a convent, and a school for cadets. The streets are broad and well laid out, and there is a large square in which is a column com- memorating the great battle (July 8, 1709) in which the Swedes were totally routed. (See CHARLES XII.) A mound 40 ft. high, sur- mounted by a cross, marks the battle field 4 m. S. W. of the city. Poltava has consider- able trade, and is connected by rail with Mos- cow, St. Petersburg, and Odessa. POLYANTHUS. See PEIMEOSE. POL1BIUS, a Greek historian, born probably about 204 B. 0., died about 122. His father was Lycortas of Megalopolis, one of the chief men of the Achaean league, who after the death of Philopoemen became its head. In the war between the Romans and Perseus of Macedon Polybius favored a neutral policy ; but when the league decided to offer assistance to the Romans, he was appointed strategus of the cavalry, and sent to Macedonia to communi- cate the determination to the Roman consul. The offer was declined, but after the defeat of Perseus at Pydna, Caius Claudius and Cne- ius Dolabella came to the Peloponnesus as commissioners on the part of Rome, and by their orders 1,000 Achaeans, among whom was Polybius, were carried to Italy to be tried for the crime of not having aided the Romans against the Macedonians. On their arrival in 167 they were distributed throughout the prin- cipal towns of Etruria ; but through the in- fluence of Fabius and Scipio, the sons of Pau- lus ^Emilius, Polybius was permitted to dwell in their father's house at Rome, and a strong friendship sprang up between the historian and Scipio, then about 18 years old. After 17 years' detention the Roman senate granted the exiles leave to return, and Polybius ac- companied the 300 survivors to their native country. There all his efforts were employed against the party who were endeavoring to foment a war with the Romans ; but his ad- vice was disregarded, and on a statue erected to his memory was the inscription that " Hel- las would have been saved if the advice of Po- lybius had been followed." He joined Scipio in the third Punic war, and was present at the destruction of Carthage, hastened to the Pelo- ponnesus after the reduction of Corinth by the Romans, and did so much to mitigate the se- verity of the victors, that statues in his honor were erected at Megalopolis, Mantinea, Tegea, and other cities. But little is known of the rest of his life. It has been surmised that he was at the capture of Numantia by Scipio in 133, as according to Cicero* he wrote a his- tory of the Numantine war. He also wrote a life of Philopoemen, a treatise on tactics, and another on the equatorial regions. His great work is his history, which consisted of 40 674 VOL. xni. 44 books, giving an account of the growth of the Roman power from 220 B. 0., where the his- tories of Timseus and Aratus of Sicyon left off, to 146, the year of the destruction of Corinth. The first two books comprise an introductory history of Rome from the capture of the city by the Gauls to the beginning of the second Punic war, and the first part ends with the conquest of Perseus and the downfall of Mace- don. The second part reviews the Roman policy, and carries on the narration of events to the downfall of Grecian liberty. Only five books remain entire, but fragments of the rest are still extant. The five books were first printed at Rome in 1473, in a Latin transla- tion. In 1609 Casaubon printed at Paris an edition, in which all the fragments up to that time discovered were incorporated. The edi- tion of Schweighauser (8 vols. 8vo, Berlin, l789-'95) contains a Latin translation and a valuable Lexicon PolyManum. The text of this edition was reprinted at Oxford in 1823 in 5 vols. 8vo, with the lexicon. The last edi- tion is that of Bekker (2 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1844), who added the fragments discovered by Cardinal Mai in the Vatican library at Rome. The best English translation of Polybius is by Hampton (2 vols. 4to, 1772). POLICARP, one of the early Christian fathers, born of a Christian family probably in Smyrna soon after the middle of the 1st century, put to death in 168 or 169. He was educated at the expense of Callisto, a noble Christian lady of Smyrna, and became a disciple of St. John the evangelist, who on the death of Bucolus consecrated him to the bishopric of his native city. During the controversy about the cele- bration of Easter he went to consult Anicetus, bishop of Rome, against whom he defended the practice of the eastern church ; and he dis- tinguished himself while at Rome by his oppo- sition to the Marcian and Valentinian heresies. During the persecution under Marcus Aurelius he was brought before the Roman proconsul at Smyrna, and when urged to curse Christ, he replied: "Six and eighty years have I served him, and he has done me nothing but good, and how could I curse him, my Lord and Sa- viour ? If you would know what I am, I tell you frankly, I am a Christian." At these words the populace cried out that he should die at the stake, and hastened to bring fuel. He refused to be fastened, and met his fate with fortitude and calmness. Poly carp wrote several homilies and epistles, all of which are now lost except a short epistle to the Philip- pians, chiefly valuable as a means of proving, by its use of Scriptural phraseology, the au- thenticity of most of the books of the New Testament. In the time of St. Jerome it was publicly read in the Asiatic churches. POLYCLETCS, a Greek sculptor, born probably at Sicyon, flourished about 430. He was a citizen of Argos, and is said to have been the pupil of the Argive Ageladas, in whose school Phidias and Myron were his fellow students. He was