A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

POLEMON. POLEMON. 435
speculations; his character was grave and severe; and the first Antoninus, and was in high favour
and he took pride in displaying the mastery which with the two former emperors. (Suid. s. v.; Phihe had acquired over emotions of every sort. He lostr. Vit.'Sop/l. p. 532.) He is placed at the six-was a close follower of Xenocrates in all things, teenth year of Hadrian, A. D. 133, by Eusebius
and an intimate friend of Crates and Crantor, who (Chron.). His life is related at considerable
were his disciples, as well as Zeno and Arcesilas; length by Philostratus ( Vit. Sophist. ii. 25, pp. 530
Crates was his successor in the Academy. In -544). He was born of a consular family, at
literature he most admired Homer and Sophocles, Laodiceia, but spent the greater part of his life at
and he is said to have been the author of the Smyrna, the people of which city conferred upon him
remark, that Homer is an epic Sophocles, and at a very early age the highest honours, in return
Sophocles a tragic Homer. He left, according to for which he did much to promote their prosperity,
Diogenes, several treatises, none of which were especially by his influence with the emperors.
extant in the time of Suidas. There is, however, Nor, in performing these services, did he neglect
a quotation made by Clemens Alexandrinus, his native city Laodiceia. An interesting account
either from him or from another philosopher of of his relations with the emperors Hadrian and
the same name, ev roSs IrepL'roi KaTa' -pdcrvv loeu Antoninus is given by Philostratus (pp. 533, 534).
(Strom. vii. p. 117), and another passage (Strom. Among the sophists and rhetoricians, whom he
ii. p. 410), upon happiness, which agrees precisely heard, were Timocrates, Scopelianus, Dion Chrywith the statement of Cicero (de Fin. iv. 6), that sostom and Apollophanes. His most celebrated
Polemon placed the summum boenum in living ac- disciple was Aristeides. His chief contemporaries
cording to the laws of nature. (Diog. Laiirt. iv. were Herodes Atticus, Marcus Byzantinus, Diony16-20; Suid. s. v.; Plut. de Adul. et Amic. 32, sius Milesius, and Favorinus, who was his chief
p. 71, e.; Lucian. Bis Accusat. 16, vol. ii. p. 811; rival. Among his imitators in subsequent times
Ath. ii. p. 44, e.; Cic. Acad. i. 9, ii. 35, 42, de was S. Gregory Nazianzen. His style of oratory
Orat. iii. 18, de Fin. ii. 6, 11, iv. 2, 6, 16, 18, was imposing rather than pleasing; and his chav. 1, 5, 7, et alib.; Horat. Serm. ii. 3. 253, fol.; racter was haughty and reserved. During the
Val. Max. vi. 9; Menag. ad Diog. Laeirt. I. c.; latter part of his life he was so tortured by the
Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 183; comp. p. 323, gout, that he resolved toput an end to his existence;
n. khhi.) he had himself shut up in the tomb of his ancestors
2. Another Platonic philosopher, the disciple of at Laodiceia, where he died of hunger, at the age
Plotinus. (Porphyr. Plot. Vit.; Fabric. 1. c.; of sixty-five. The exact time of his death is not
Clinton, F. H. sub anno B. C. 315, vol. ii. 3d ed.) known; but it must have been some time after A. D.
3. Of Athens by citizenship, but by birth either 143, as he was heard in that year by Verus.
of Ilium, or Samos, or Sicyon, a Stoic philosopher The only extant work of Polemon is the funeral
and an eminent geographer, surnamed d'7rEp- orations for Cynaegeirus and Callimachus, the ge1 T71Ts, was the son of Euegetes, and a contempo- nerals who fell at Marathon, which are supposed
rary of Aristophanes of Byzantium, in the time of to be pronounced by their fathers, each extolling
Ptolemy Epiphanes, at the beginning of the second his own son above the other. Philostratus mencentury B. C. (Suid. s. v.; Ath. vi. p. 234; Clin- tions several others of his rhetorical compositions,
ton, F. H. vol. iii. sub ann. B. C. 199). In philo- the subjects of which are chiefly taken from Athesophy he was a disciple of Panaetius. He made nian history, and an oration which he pronounced,
extensive journeys through Greece, to collect mate- by command of Hadrian, at the dedication of the
rials for his geographical works, in the course of temple of Zeus Olympius at Athenis, in A. D. 135.
which he paid particular attention to the inscrip- His Aodyot E/7rtc{Lsto were first printed by H.
tions on votive offerings and on columns, whence Stephanus, in his collection of the declamations of
he obtained the surname of =7'VxoKicoras. (Ath. Polemon, Himerius, and other rhetoricians, Paris,
i. c.; Casaub. ad loc.) As the collector of these 1547, 4to., afterwards by themselves in Greek,
inscriptions, lie was one of the earlier contributors Paris, 1586, 4to.; and in Greek and Latin, Toto the Greek Anthology, and he wrote a work ex- losae, 1637, 8vo. The latest and best edition is
pressly, iepI Tco( KaTa' 7rdoAes 4rtypagEyadrTcv that of Caspar and Conrad Orelli, Lips. 1819,
(Ath. x. pp. 436, d., 442, e.); besides which, other 8vo. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vi. pp. 2-4;
works of his are mentioned, upon the votive Clinton, Fasti Romnani, s. a. 133, 135, 143.) There
offerings and monuments in the Acropolis of is a coin of Hadrian, bearing the inscription
Athens, at Lacedenemon, at Delphi, and elsewhere, IIOAEMnQN. ANE~HKE. CMTPNAIOIC. (Rasche,
which no doubt contained copies of numerous epi- Lexicon Rei Num. s. v. Polemon; Eckhel, Doctr.
grams. Hence Jacobs infers that, in all probability, Num. Vet. vol. ii. p. 562). This coin belongs to
his works formed a chief source of the Garland of a class which Eckhel has explained in a dissertation
Meleager (Animadv. in Anth. Graec. vol. i. Prooem. (vol. iv. c. 19, pp. 368-374). The question repp. xxxiv. xxxv.). Athenaeus and other writers specting the identity of the sophist with the writer,
make very numerous quotations from his works, who forms the subject of the following article, is
the titles of which it is unnecessary to give at discussed by Fr. Passow (tTeber Polemnon's Zeitalter,
length. They are chiefly descriptions of different in the Archiv. fiir Philologie und Paedagogik, 1825,
parts of Greece; some are on the paintings pre- vol.i. pp. 7-9, Vermischte Schriften, p. 137.) [P. S.]
served in various places, and several are contro- PO'LEMON (loxsCevo), the author of a short
versial, among which is one against Eratosthenses. Greek work on Physiognomy, which is still
(Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 184; Vossins, de extant. Nothing is known of the events of his
list. Graec. pp. 159, foll. ed. Westermann; Clin- life, but from some expressions that he uses (e. g.
ton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 524, where a list of his works the word eozbAoduVros, i. 6. p. 197) it has been
is given.) supposed that he was a Christian. With respect
4. ANTONIUS, a highly celebrated sophist and to his date it can only be stated that he must
rhetorician, who flourished under Trajan, Hadrian, have lived in or before the third century after
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