Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/472

460 POLYCRATES. discharged with the utmost fidelity and integrity ; he secured the ishmd for Ptolemy Epiphanes, the infant son and successor of Philopator, and on his return to Alexandria about b. c. 196, he brought Avith him a considerable sum of money for the use of the monarch. He was received at Alexandria with great applause, and forthwith obtained great power in the kingdom ; but as he advanced in years, his character changed for the worse, and he indulged in every kind of vice and wickedness. We are ignorant of his subsequent career, in con- sequence of the loss of the later books of Polybius ; but we learn from a fragment of the historian that it was through his evil advice that Ptolemy took no part in military affairs, although he had reached the age of twenty-five. (Polyb. v. 64, 65, 82, 84, xviii. 38, xxiii. 16.) POLY'CRATES (UoKvKpdTris), an Athenian rhetorician and sophist of some repute, a contempo- rary of Socrates and Isocrates, taught first at Athens and afterwards at Cyprus, He is mentioned as the teacher of Zoilus. He is named along with some of the most distinguished orators of his time by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (o?e Inaeo, c. 8, de Dem. Eloc. c. 20), who, however, finds great fault with his style. He wrote, 1. An accusation of So- crates [Karriyopia 'XooKpd.Tous), which is said by some writers to have been the speech delivered by Melitus at the trial of Socrates ; but as it contained allusion to an event which occurred six years after the death of the philosopher, it would seem to have been simply a declamation on the subject composed at a subsequent period. (Diog. Laert. ii. 38, 39, with the note of Menagius ; Aelian, V. H. xi. 10, with the note of Perizonius ; Isocr. Busins, § 4, &c. ; Quintil. ii. 17. § 1, iii. 1. § H ; Suidas, s. v. TlovKpdTT}s.) 2. BovaipiSos 'AiroXoyia. The oration of Isocrates, entitled Busiris, is addressed to Polycrates, and points out the faults which the latter had committed in his oration on this subject. 3. 'Ey Kw/JLioy QpacrvSovKov (Schol. ad Arist. Rliet p. 48). 4. Ilepi 'A(/)poSto-twj', an obscene poem on love, which he published under the name of the poetess Philaenis, for the purpose of injuring her reputation (Athen. viii. p. 335, c. d.). It is doubt- ful whether the above-mentioned Polycrates is the same as the Polycrates who wrote a work on Laconia {AaKwviKa) referred to by Athenaeus (iv. p. 139, d.). Speiigel supposes that the rhetorician Polycrates is the author of the Panegyric on Helen^ which has come down to us as the work of Gorgias. ( Westermann, Geschichte der Griecli. Beredtsamkeit, § 50, n. 22.) POLY'CRATES (UoAvKpaT-ns). 1. A statuary, whom Pliny mentions among those who made athletas et armatos et venatores sacrificanteaqite (//. A^. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 34). There is a fragment of a Hermes in the Villa Mattei, bearing the muti- lated inscription, TIMO0EO2 A0H.... nOATKP on which slight basis Visconti rests the hypothesis that Polycrates was an Athenian artist, contem- porary with Timotheus, and that the Hermes in question was a copy of a bronze statue of Timo- theus by Polycrates. A simpler hypothesis would be to complete the inscription thus, TiiJ.6Qios 'Ad-rj- yaios widrjKf, TlnKvKpaTrjs iiroUi. (Monum. Mat- tei. vol. iil n. 118; Visconti, Icon, Grecque^ vol. i. POLYDAMNA. p. 150, n. ; R,. Rochette, Lettre a M. Scliorn, pp. 389—390.) 2. An engraver of precious stones, known by an inscription on a gem representing Eros and Psyche. (Mariette, Traile, <^c. vol. i. p. 421 ; R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 149.) [P- S.] POLY'CRITUS (TloKiKpiros), of Mendae in Sicily, wrote a work on Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, which is referred to by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 63). Aristotle likewise quotes a work by Po- lycritus on Sicilian affairs, in poetry {Mirab. Aus- cult. 1 ] 2), which is probably the same work as the one referred to by Diogenes. It is doubtful whether this Polycritus is the same person as the Polycritus who wrote on the East, and whose work is referred to by Strabo (xv. p. 735), Plutarch {Alex. 46), Antigonus of Carystus (c. 150, or 135, ed. Westermann), and as one of the writers from whom Pliny compiled the 11th and 12th books of his Natural History. POLY'CRITUS {TloXiKpLTos a physician at the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon, king of Persia, in the fourth century B.C. (Plut. ^r^oa;. 21). He was a native of Mende in Macedonia, and not a " son of Mendaeus," as Fabricius states {Bibl. Gr. vol. xiii. p. 376, ed. vet.). [ W. A. G.] POLY'CRITUS {UoXvKpiros), a mythical ar- chitect, mentioned by the Pseudo-Plutarch, in con- nection with the story of Poemander. ( Quaesi. Graec. 37, p. 299, c.) [P. S.] POLYCTOR (noXvKTwp). 1. A son of Ae- gj'ptus and Caliande. (Apollod. ii. 1. § 5.) 2. A son of Pterelaus, prince of Ithaca, A place in Ithaca, Polyctorium, was believed to have de- rived its name from him. (Horn. Od. xvii. 207 ; Eustath. ad Ham. p. 1815.) There is one more mythical personage of this name. (Horn. Od. xviii. 298.) [L. S.] POLYDAMAS (UoAuddixas), a son of Pan- thous and Phrontis, was a Trojan hero, a friend of Hector, and brother of Euphorbus. (Hom. //. xi. 57, xvi. 535, xvii. 40.) [L. S.] POLY'DAMAS (novAuSaVas). 1. Of Sco- tussa in Thessaly, son of Nicias, conquered in the Pancratium at the Olympic games, in 01. 93, B.C. 408. His size was immense, and the most mar- vellous stories are related of his strength, how he killed without arms a huge and fierce lion on mount Olympus, how he stopped a chariot at full gallop, &c. His reputation led the Persian king, Dareius Ochus, to invite him to his court, where he performed similar feats. (Euseb. 'EAA. 6. p. 41 ; Pans. vi. 5, vii. 27. § 6, who calls him UovXvSdiuias ; Diod. Fragm. vol. ii. p. 640, ed. Wesseling ; Lucian, Quomodo Hist, conscrib. 35, et alibi ; Suidas, s.v. UoKuSdfias ; Krause, Olympia,^. 360.) ^ 2. Of Pharsalus in Thessaly, was entrusted by his fellow-citizens about B. c. 375, with the supreme government of their native town. Polydaraas fonned an alliance with Sp.arta, with which state his family had long been connected by the bonds of public hospitality ; but he soon after entered into a treaty with Jason of Pherae. The history of this treaty is related elsewhere [Vol. IL p. 554, b.]. On the murder of Jason in b. c. 370, his brother Polyphron, who succeeded to his power, put to death Polydamas and eight other most dis- tinguished citizens of Pharsalus. (Xen. HeU. vi. 1. § 2, ^c. vi. 4. § 34.) , POLYDAMNA {TioXiUfiva), the wife of king Thon in Egypt; she gave Helen a remedy by