Polemon

(Πολέμων), historical.

1. Son of Andromenes the Stymphaean, a. Macedonian officer, in the service of Alexander the Great. The great intimacy which subsisted between him and Philotas caused him to be suspected, together with his brothers Amyntas, Attalus, and Simmias, of participating in the treasonable designs imputed to Philotas: a charge to which Polemon had the imprudence to give countenance by taking to flight immediately on learning the arrest of the son of Parmenion. Amyntas, however, who remained, having successfully defended himself before the assembly of the army, obtained the pardon or acquittal of Polemon also. (Arr. Anab. 3.27 ; Curt. 7.1.10, 2.1-10.)

2. Son of Megacles, a Macedonian of Pella, who was one of the officers appointed by Alexander to command the garrison at Memphis, B. C. 331. (Arr. Anab. 3.5.4.)

3. Son of Theramees, a Macedonian officer, who was left by Alexander in the command of a fleet of thirty triremes which was destined to guard the mouths of the Nile, and the sea-coast of Egypt, B. C. 331. (Arr. Anab. 3.5.6; Curt. 4.8.4.)

4. A Macedonian officer of rank, who, in the disputes that followed the death of Alexander, distinguished himself as a warm partizan of Perdiccas. In order to conciliate the favour of the regent, he endeavoured, though ineffectually, to prevent Arrhidaeus from transporting the body of the deceased monarch to Egypt (Arrian, apud Phot. p. 70b.) He afterwards served under Alcetas, the brother of Perdiccas, and was taken prisoner by Antigonus in Pisidia, together with Attalus and Docimus, B. C. 320. From this time he shared the fortunes of Attals; the history of their captivity, escape, and final defeat has been already given. [Attalus, No. 2.] (Diod. 18.45, 19.16.) It is highly probable, as suggested by Droysen, that this Polemon is the same with the son of Andromenes (No. 1), and that he was consequently a brother of Attalus, with whom we find him so closely connected.

5. A dynast of Olba in Cilicia, whose name appears on the coins of that city, with the titles of αρχιερεύς and αυνάστης. As it is associated with that of M. Antony, there is little doubt that he is the same person who is mentioned by Appian (B. C. 5.75) as being appointed by Antony to the sovereignty of a part of Cilicia, and who subsequently became king of Pontus [Polemon I.] The grounds on which this identity is denied by Eckhel vol. iii. p. 63) are not satisfactory. (Visconti. Iconographie Grecque, vol. iii. p. 5, &c.) [E.H.B]

(Πολέμων), the name of two kings of Pontus and the Bosporus.

1. Polemon I., was the son of Zenon, the orator of Laodiceia, and it was as a reward for the services rendered by his father as well as himself that he was appointed by Antony in B. C. 39 to the government of a part of Cilicia. (Appian, App. BC 5.75; Strab. xii. p.578.) At a subsequent period he obtained from the triumvir in exchange for this principality the more important government of Pontus with the title of king. The precise date of this change is unknown, but Polemon is already called by Dio Cassius king of Pontus in B. C. 36, in which year he co-operated with Antony in his campaign against the Parthians. On this occasion he shared in the defeat of Appius Statianus, and was taken prisoner by the Parthian king, but allowed to ransom himself, and restored to liberty. (D. C. 49.25; Plut. Ant. 38.) In B. C. 35 he was employed by Antony to negotiate with the Median king Artavasdes, whom he succeeded in detaching from the alliance of Parthia, and gaining over to that of Rome: a service for which he was subsequently rewarded by the triumvir by the addition to his dominions of the Lesser Armenia. (D. C. 49.33, 44.) But though he thus owed his elevation to Antony he was fortunate enough not to share in his fall, and although he had sent an auxiliary force to the assistance of his patron in B. C. 30, shortly before the battle of Actium, he was able to make his peace with Octavian, who confirmed him in his kingdom, and some years afterwards bestowed on him the honorary appellations of a friend and ally of the Roman people. (Plut. Ant. 61; Strab. xii. p.578; D. C. 53.25.) At a subsequent Period (about B. C. 16) he was intrusted by Agrippa with the charge of reducing the kingdom of Bosporus, which had been usurped by Scribonius after the death of Asander. The usurper was put to death by the Bosporans before the urrival of Polemon, who notwithstanding some opposition established himself in the sovereignty of the country, in which he was confirmed, first by Agrippa and then by Augustus himself. (D. C. 54.24.) His reign after this was long and prosperous : his dominions comprised, besides Pontus itself, Colchis and the other provinces, as far as the kingdom of the Bosporus, the confines of which last he extended to the river Tanais, and destroyed the city of that name, which had ventured to throw off his yoke (Strab. xi. pp. 493, 4.95, 499.) But having engaged in an expedition against the barbarian tribe of the Aspurgians (who inhabited the mountains above Phanagoria) he was not only defeated by them, but taken prisoner, and immediately put to death. (Id. xi. p. 495, xii. p. 556.) The date of this event is unknown; but it appears from an inscription that he must have been still on the throne as late as B. C. 2. (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. vol. ii. No. 3524; Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 369.)

Polemon had been twice married: first to Dynamis, a daughter of Pharnaces, and grand-daughter of Mithridates the Great, by whom he appears to have had no children. (D. C. 54.24); and secondly to PYTHODORIS, who succeeded him on the throne. By her he left two sons, Polemon II., and Zenon king of Armenia, and one daughter who was married to Cotys king of Thrace. (Strab. xii. p.556; Tac. Ann. 2.56.)

2. Polemon II., was a son of the preceding and of Pythodoris. During the lifetime of his mother he was content to remain in a private station, while he assisted her in the administration of her dominions: but in A. D. 39, he was raised by Caligula to the sovereignty not only of Pontus, which had been held by Pythodoris, but of the Bosporus also. This last was, however, after-wards taken from him by Claudius, who assigned it to Mithridates, while he gave Polemon a portion of Cilicia in its stead, A. D. 41. (D. C. 59.12, 9.8.) He appears to have been a man of a weak character, and in A. D. 48 allowed himself to be persuaded by Berenice, the widow of Herod, king of Chalcis, to adopt the Jewish religion in order that he might marry that princess, who possessed vast wealth. But Berenice had sought this marriage only as a cloak for her illicit amours [Berenice, No. 2.] : it was in consequence soon dissolved, and Polemon ceased to profess Judaism (J. AJ 20.7.3). At a subsequent period he was induced by Nero to abdicate the throne, and Pontus was reduced to the condition of a Roman province. This appears to have taken place about the year A. D. 62 (Suet. Nero 18; Eutrop. 7.14; Aur. Vict. de Caes 5.2; Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 873). As the city of Polemionium on the Euxine (Scymn. Ch. Fr. 1.177; Steph. Byz. s. v. Πολεμώνιον) is not mentioned by Strabo, it appears certain that we must ascribe its foundation to Polemon II., and not to his father. Concerning the coins of the two Polemons, see Cary, Hist. des Rois de Thrace et du Bosphore, 4to. Paris 1752, and Eckhel, vol. ii. pp. 368-373.

[E.H.B]

(Πολέμων,) literary.

1. Of Athens, an eminent Platonic philosopher, and for some time the head of the Academy, was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political distinction. In his youth, Polemon was extremely profligate; but one day, when he was about thirty, on his bursting into the school of Xenocrates, at the head of a band of revellers, his attention was so arrested by the discourse, which the master continued calmly in spite of the interruption, and which chanced to be upon temperance, that he tore off his garland and remained an attentive listener, and from that day he adopted an abstemious course of life, and continued to frequent the school, of which, on the death of Xenocrates, he became the head, in Ol. 116, B. C. 315. According to Eusebius (Citron.) he died in Ol. 126. 4, B. C. 273. Diogenes also says that he died at a great age, and of natural decay. He esteemed the object of philosophy to be, to exercise men in things and deeds, not in dialectic speculations; his character was grave and severe; and he took pride in displaying the mastery which he had acquired over emotions of every sort. He was a close follower of Xenocrates in all things, and an intimate friend of Crates and Crantor, who were his disciples, as well as Zeno and Arcesilas ; Crates was his successor in the Academy. In literature he most admired Homer and Sophocles, and he is said to have been the author of the remark, that Homer is an epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a tragic Homer. He left, according to Diogenes, several treatises, none of which were extant in the time of Suidas. There is, however, a quotationn made by Clemens Alexandrinus, either from hint or from another philosopher of the same nnme, ἐν τοῖς περὶ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν βίου (Strom. vii. p. 117), and another passage (Strom. ii. p. 410), upon happiness, which agrees precisely with the statement of Cicero (de Fin. 4.6), that Polemon placed the summum bonum in living according to the laws of nature. (D. L. 4.16_20; Suid. s.v. Plut. de Adul. et Ameic. 32, p 71, e.; Lucian. Bis Accusat. 16, vol. ii. p. 811; Ath. ii. p. 44e.; Cic. Ac. 1.9, 2.35, 42, de Orat. 3.18, de Fin. 2.6, 11, 4.2, 6, 16, 18, 5.1, 5, 7, et alib.; Horat. Serm. 2.3. 253, fol. ; V. Max. 6.9; Menag. ad Diog. Laert. l.c. ; Fabric. Bibl. Gratec. vol. iii. p. 183; comp. p 323, n. hhh.)

2. Another Platonic philosopher, the disciple of Plotinus. (Porphyr. Plot. Vit.; Fabric. l.c. ; Clinton, F. H. sub anno B. C. 315, vol. 2.3d ed.)

3. Of Athens by citizenship, but by birth either of Ilium, or Samos, or Sicyon, a Stoic philosopher and an eminent geographer, surnamed ὁ περιηγήτης, was the son of Euegetes, and a contemporary of Aristophanes of Byzantium, in the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, at the beginning of the second century B. C. (Suid. s.v. Ath. vi. p. 234; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. sub ann. B. C. 199). In philosophy he was a disciple of Panaetius. He made extensive journeys through Greece, to collect materials for his geographical works, in the course of which he paid particular attention to the inscriptions on votive offerings and on columns, whence he obtained the surname of Στηλοκόπας, (Ath. l.c. ; Casaub. ad loc.) As the collector of these inscriptions, he was one of the earlier contributors to the Greek Anthology, and he wrote a work expressly, Περὶ τῶν κατὰ πόλεις ἐπιγραμμάτων (Ath. x. pp. 436, d., 442, e.); besides which, other works of his are mentioned, upon the votive offerings and monuments in the Acropolis of Athens, at Lacedaemon, at Delphi, and elsewhere, which no doubt contained copies of numerous epigrams. Hence Jacobs infers that, in all probability, his works formed a chief source of the Garland of Meleager (Animadv. in Anth. Graec. vol. i. Prooem. pp. xxxiv. xxxv.). Athenaeus and other writers make very numerous quotations from his works, the titles of which it is unnecessary to give at length. They are chiefly descriptions of different parts of Greece; some are on the paintings preserved in various places, and several are controversial, among which is one against Eratosthenes. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 184; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 159, foil. ed. Westermann; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 524, where a list of his works is given.)

4. Antonius, a highly celebrated sophist and rhetorician, who flourished under Trajan, Hadrian, and the first Antoninus, and was in high favour with the two former emperors. (Suid. s.v. Philostr. Vit. Soph. p. 532.) He is placed at the sixteenth year of Hadrian, A. D. 133, by Eusebius (Chron.). His life is related at considerable length by Philostratus (Vit. Sophist. 2.25, pp. 530-544). He was born of a consular family, at Laodiceia, but spent the greater part of his life at Smyrna, the people of which city conferred upon him at a very early age the highest honours, in return for which he did much to promote their prosperity, especially by his influence with the emperors. Nor, in performing these services, did he neglect his native city Laodiceia. An interesting account of his relations with the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus is given by Philostratus (pp. 533, 534).

Among the sophists and rhetoricians, whom he heard, were Timocrates, Scopelianus, Dion Chrysostom and Apollophanes. His most celebrated disciple was Aristeides. His chief contemporaries were Herodes Atticus, Marcus Byzantinus, Dionysius Milesius, and Favorinus, who was his chief rival. Among his imitators in subsequent times was S. Gregory Nazianzen. His style of oratory was imposing rather than pleasing; and his character was haughty and reserved. During the latter part of his life he was so tortured by the gout, that he resolved toput an end to his existence; he had himself shut up in the tomb of his ancestors at Laodiceia, where he died of hunger, at the age of sixty-five. The exact time of his death is not known; but it must have been some time after A. D. 143, as he was heard in that year by Verus. Works Funeral Orations

The only extant work of Polemon is the funeral orations for Cynaegeirus and Callimachus, the generals who fell at Marathon, which are supposed to be pronounced by their fathers, each extolling his own son above the other. Philostratus mentions several others of his rhetorical compositions, the subjects of which are chiefly taken from Athenian history, and an oration which he pronounced, by command of Hadrian, at the dedication of the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens, in A. D. 135. Editions

His λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι were first printed by H. Stephanus, in his collection of the declamations of Polemon, Himerius, and other rhetoricians, Paris, 1547, 4to., afterwards by themselves in Greek, Paris, 1586, 4to.; and in Greek and Latin, Tolosae, 1637, 8vo. The latest and best edition is that of Caspar and Conrad Orelli, Lips. 1819, 8vo. Further Information

Fabric. Bibl. Gracec. vol. vi. pp. 2-4 ; Clinton, Fasti Romani, s. a. 133, 135, 143.) There is a coin of Hadrian, bearing the inscription Πολεμων. ανεθηκε. ξμυρναιοιξ. (Rasche, Lexicon Rei Num. s. v. Polemnon ; Eckhel, Doctr. Numt. Vet. vol. ii. p. 562). This coin belongs to a class which Eckhel has explained in a dissertation (vol. 4.100.19, pp. 368-374). The question respecting the identity of the sophist with the writer, who forms the subject of the following article, is discussed by Fr. Passow (Ueber Polemon's Zeitaeter, in the Archiv. far Philologie und Paedagogik, 1825, vol. i. pp. 7-9, Vermischte Schriften, p. 137. [P.S]

(Πολέμων), the author of a short Greek work on Physiognomy, which is still extant. Nothing is known of the events of his life, but from some expressions that he uses (e. g. the word εἰδωλόθυτος, 1.6. p. 197) it has been supposed that he was a Christian. With respect to his date it can only be stated that he must have lived in or before the third century after Christ, as he is mentioned by Origen (Cont. Cels. 1.33. p.351, ed. Bened.), and from his style he cannot be supposed to have lived much earlier than this time. Works On Physiognomy

His work, which appears to have suffered much from the ignorance of transcribers, consists of two books: in the first, which contains twenty-three chapters, after proving the utility of physiognomy, he lays down the general principles of the science; he speaks of the shape of the head, the colour of the hair, of the forehead, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the manner of breathing, the sound of the voice, &c.; in the second book, which consists of twenty-seven chapters, he goes on to apply the principles he had before laid down, and describes in a few words the characters of the courageous man, the timid, the impudent, the passionate, the talkative, &c. Editions

It was first published in Greek by Camillus Peruscus, with Aelian's "Varia Historia," and other works, at Rome, 1545, 4to. It was translated into Latin by Nicolaus Petreius, and published with Meletius "De Natura Hominis," and other works, at Venice, 1552, 4to.

The last and best edition is that by J. G. F. Franz in his "Scriptores Physiognomoniae Veteres," Altenburg. 1780. 8vo. in Greek and Latin, with a Preface and Notes. Translations

It was translated into Arabic, and is still extant in that language. [Philemon]. Further Information

See Franz's Preface to his "Script. Physiogn. Vet." and Penny Cyclopaedia. [W.A.G]

of Alexandria, a painter mentioned by Pliny among those who were non ignobiles quitdem, in transcursu tamen dicendi (H. N. 35.11. s. 40.42). [P.S]

(Πολέμων). (1) I. A king of Pontus and the Bosporus. He was the son of Zenon, the orator of Laodicea. As a reward for the services rendered by his father as well as himself, he was appointed by Antony in B.C. 39 to the government of a part of China; and he subsequently obtained in exchange the kingdom of Pontus. He accompanied Antony in his expedition against the Parthians in 36. After the battle of Actium he was able to make his peace with Octavian, who confirmed him in his kingdom. About the year 16 he was intrusted by Agrippa with the charge of reducing the kingdom of Bosporus, of which he was made king after conquering the country. His reign after this was long and prosperous; he extended his dominions as far as the river Tanaïs; but having engaged in an expedition against the barbarian tribe of the Aspurgians, he was not only defeated by them, but taken prisoner, and put to death. By his second wife Pythodoris, who succeeded him on the throne, he left two sons, Polemon II., and Zenon, king of Armenia, and one daughter, who was married to Cotys, king of Thrace.

(2) II. Son of the preceding and of Pythodoris. He was raised to the sovereignty of Pontus and Bosporus by Caligula in A.D. 39. Bosporus was afterwards taken from him by Claudius, who assigned it to Mithridates, while he gave Polemon a portion of Cilicia in its stead, 41. In 62 Polemon was induced by Nero to abdicate the throne, and Pontus was reduced to the condition of a Roman province.

(3) Of Athens, an eminent Platonic philosopher. He was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political distinction. In his youth, Polemon was extremely profligate; but one day, when he was about thirty, on his bursting into the school of Xenocrates at the head of a band of revellers, his attention was so arrested by the discourse, which chanced to be upon temperance, that he tore off his garland and remained an attentive listener, and from that day he adopted an abstemious course of life, and continued to frequent the school, of which, on the death of Xenocrates, he became the head, B.C. 315. He died in 273 at a great age. He esteemed the object of philosophy to be, to exercise men in things and deeds, not in dialectic speculation. He placed the summum bonum in living according to the laws of nature.

(Πολέμων). The name of several Greek authors. (1) Called Periegētes, the most celebrated of that class of writers. (See periegetae.) Born in the district of Troas, he afterwards settled at Athens, where he was presented with the citizenship about B.C. 200. He there worked up the material which he had collected from inscriptions, dedications, and public monuments of all kinds into a number of works (inter alia, on Athens, and on the holy road from Athens to Eleusis), which, in succeeding times, were much quoted and highly valued as a mine of archaeological facts, and of important points connected with the history of art. The fragments which are preserved enable us to recognize him as a well-read author.

(2) Antonius Polĕmon, the Sophist or rhetorician; a native of Laodicea, who lived in the first half of the second century A.D., and presided over a flourishing school of rhetoric in Smyrna. He was much esteemed by his contemporaries and in high favour with the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. Towards the end of his life he was a martyr to the gout, and accordingly put an end to his life in his fifty-sixth year by causing himself to be buried alive in the tomb of his ancestors at Laodicea. His fame was founded principally on the pithiness and adroitness of his improvisations. There are preserved two declamations by him, artificial variations upon the same theme—funeral orations in honour of Cynaegirus and Callimachus, the generals who fell at Marathon. They have been edited by Orelli (Leipzig, 1819).