Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/706

 686 POLYCRATES POLYGAMY judged to have surpassed Phidias in images of men, though not in those of the gods. His statue of Juno in the temple between Argos and Mycenae was thought by Strabo to be equal to the Jupiter and Minerva of his great rival. The goddess was seated on a throne, crowned with a garland on which were wrought the Graces and the Hours. The head, breast, arms, and feet were of ivory, and the robe which covered the figure from the wais"t downward was of gold. A statue which he executed, known as the Spear Bearer, was so exquisitely proportioned that it was called the canon or rule, and artists came from all parts to study it. Polycletus also wrote a treatise on the propor- tions of the human form. He was acknowl- edged to be the greatest architect of his time, and designed the theatre at Epidaurus, which Pausanias pronounced the finest of Greek and Roman theatres. POLYCRATES, a tyrant of Samos, killed in 522 B. 0. In conjunction with his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson he seized the sov- ereignty of Samos. Having assassinated one brother and banished the other, he strength- ened the city, enlisted 1,000 archers and man- ned 100 galleys, and made war with unvarying success upon the neighboring territories. Ac- cording to Herodotus, Amasis king of Egypt, his friend and ally, wrote to him to sacrifice his most valued possession in order to forestall the misfortunes that Nemesis must have in store for him. Polycrates accordingly threw into the sea a ring of marvellous value; but after some days the ring was found in the stomach of a fish which had been presented to the tyrant. Amasis, more fearful than ever, then broke off his alliance. Grote thinks it more likely that it was Polycrates who broke the alliance in order to cultivate the friendship of Cambyses, to whom he furnished 40 galleys for the invasion of Egypt. He manned these with such of his subjects as he thought to be hostile to himself. They deserted Cambyses, returned to Samos, and attacked Polycrates, but were defeated. They then obtained the assistance of the Spartans and Corinthians, and again attacked Polycrates, but were finally de- feated. Afterward Oroetes, the satrap of Sar- dis, lured him into Magnesia, and he was seized upon his arrival and crucified. POLYDORE VERGIL. See VERGIL. POLYGAMY (Gr. Tro/Uif, many, and -yafteiv, to marry), a state in which a man has at the same time more than one wife, or a woman more than one husband. The latter custom, more commonly called polyandry, prevails in Thibet and Cashmere, among the Coorgs, Todas, Nairs, and other races in India, in Ceylon, in New Zealand, among some of the Malayo-Polyne- sian races, in the Aleutian archipelago, among the Koriaks in Siberia, on the Orinoco, and in parts of Africa. Yet on the whole, as Sir John Lubbock observes, legal polyandry (as opposed to mere laxness of morality) seems to be an exceptional system, generally in- tended to avoid the evils arising from monog- amy where the number of women is less than that of men. The opinion often advanced that births of male children are predomi- nant in polyandrous relationships is not sup- ported by recent accurate investigations. Po- lygamy has existed from time immemorial, especially among the nations of the East. It is mentioned as prevailing before the flood (Gen. iv. 19), was common among the patri- archs, and was tolerated by the laws of Mo- ses (Exod. xxi. 10, and Deut. xxi. 15). But the custom appears to have died out among the Hebrews about the beginning of our era, for in the New Testament we meet with no trace of it, and the passages which refer to marriage seem to imply that monogamy was the universal rule, though from the Talmud it is evident that polygamy was still lawful. There are no positive injunctions in the Bible or in the Talmud against the practice, and the rabbis of the East tolerate it even now, though those of the West strictly prohibited it more than eight centuries ago. In the East the custom has been almost universal, being sanc- tioned by all religions, including that of Mo- hammed, which allows a man to have four wives ; but the permission is rarely used except by the rich, and the Arabs scarcely ever have* more than one wife. By Hindoo law a man may have wives without limit, and may keep as many concubines as he chooses, though the lat- ter is permitted rather by custom than by law. Lubbock mentions two chief causes of polyg- amy : one, that in tropical countries, where it predominates, girls become marriageable very young and soon lose their external attractions, and that therefore every man who is able to do so provides himself with a succession of favor- ites, even when the first wife remains not only nominally the head, but really his confidant and adviser ; the other, that among people who have no domesticated animals to provide milk, the children are not weaned until they are two, three, or even four years old, and as during this period husband and wife generally remain apart, unless a man has several wives he is often left without any at all. Among the Greeks, at least of later times, polygamy was never practised, although in the Homeric age it seems to have prevailed to some extent. In republican Rome it was not known ; but during the existence of the empire the prevalence of divorce gave rise to a state of things analogous to it. In the Christian church it has never been tolerated. It prevailed among the bar- barous nations of antiquity, with the excep- tion of the Germans, who, Tacitus says, " al- most alone among the barbarians, are content with a single wife." In England the punish- ment of polygamy was originally in the hands of the church. A statute of Edward I. placed it among the capital crimes ; but it did not come entirely under the control of the temporal power until a statute of James I. made it pun- ishable with death like other cases of felony.