• IK which i- entitled Latercu-
ind which includes hea-
; \ portion of this
i- llandus, in the general
the whole
will I"' found, but in a mutilati d Btate, in thi
volume ol the Barat wot . \.; / ,,.
I.vi; Schiinemann, BiM.
i
Polemo, Anionh s. a highly celebrated sophist and rhetorician, who flourished under Trajan. Hadrian. and the lir-t Antoninus, and was in high favor with the two former empt rors (Suid. s. v.; I Mi il. >^t r. \'it. Sophist. i [e i- placed at the sixteenth year of Hadrian. A.l>. 133, i'\ Eusebius (C&ron.). Hi- life is related at considerable length by Philostratus i 17/. Sophist, ii. ■_'.">. p. 530 i . II'' was born of a consular family at Laodicea, but spent the greater part of Ids life at Smyrna, the people of which citj conferred upon him at a very early age the highest honors, in return for which lie did much to promote their prosperity, espe- cially by Ids influence with the emperors. Nor. in per- forming these services, did he neglect his native city Laodicea. An interesting account of ids relations with tin- emperors Hadrian and Antoninus is given by l'hi- lostratus (p. 533, 534). Among the sophists and rhet- oricians whom In- heard were Timocrates, Scopelianus, I lion Chrysostom, and Apollophanes. His most cele- brated disciple was Aristides. Hi- chief contempora- ries were Herodes Atticus, Marcus Byzantinus, Diony- sius Milesius, and Favorinus, who was Id- chief rivaL Among his imitators in subsequent times was St.Gregory Nazianzen. His style of oratory was imposing rather than pleasing, and his character was haughty and re- served. During the latter part of his life he was so tortured by the gout that he resolved to put an end to hi- existence: he had himself shut up in the tomb of his ancestors at Laodicea, where he died of hunger, at
the age of sixty-five. The exact time of his death is
not known; hut it must have been some time after \.D. 1 l:;. a- he was heard in that year by Writs, 'fhe only extant work of Polemo is the funeral orations for Cynsegeirus and Callimachus, the generals who fell at Marathon, which are supposed to he pronounced by their fathers, each extolling his own son above the other. Philostratus mentions several others of ids
rhetorical compositions, the subjects ol which are chief- ly taken from Athenian history, and an oration which he pronounced, by command of Hadrian, at the dedica- tion of the temple of Zeus ( llympius at Athens, in \.I>. 135. His Aciyoi tni-tHpun were first printed by II. Stephanus, in his collection of the declamations of Po- lemo, Himerius, and other rhetoricians ( Paris. 1547, I to; afterwards by themselves in Greek, Paris, 1586, Ito; and in Greek and Latin, Tolosse, 1637, 8vo). The latesl and besl edition is that of Caspar and Conrad < >relli Leips. 1819, 8vo). See Fabricius, BM Grate. \i. -J I: Clinton. Fasti Romani, s. a. 133, 135, 143. There is a coin of Hadrian, bearing the inscription ITOAEMQN. AYNE9HKEJ \n l'\ \lol» . (Rasche, Lexic. ReiNum. s. v. Polemo; Eckhel, Doctr. Sum. Vet. ii. 562). This coin belongs to a class which Eckhel has explained ill a dissertation (vol. iv, c. 19, p. 368 37 1 >. There is a question respecting the identity ol this sophist with Po- lemo, the author of a short Creek work on Physiogno- my, who, il is supposed, was a Christian, and must have lived in or before the 3d century. See the discussion on this question bj Passow, Ueber Pole/no's Zeiialter, in ivjlir Philologu mid Padagogik (i, 7 '.< >. 1825. Smith. Diet. ofGr. and limn. Bioff. awl Mythol. s. v.
Polemo i lloVm.o i hi .\iin\-. ili an eminent Platonic philosopher, and for some time the head of the Academy, was the sou of Philostratus; a man of wealth and political distinction. In his youth Polemo was ex- tremely profligate; hut one da\'. when he WHS almiit thirty, lie broke into the school of Xenocrates at the
head of a hand of revellers. Hi- attention was bo ar- rested by the discourse, which the master continued
calmly in spin- ,,t' the interruption, ami which i to he 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 rrequenl the school, of which, on the death of Xenoc- '• i -. le i" i Hue ii„. head, in ol. 116, B.C. 815. Ac- cording to Eusebius (Chron,) he did in 01. 126, I. B.C. Di cues also say- that he died at a great age,
POLENZ
349
POLHILL
and of natural decay. He was a close follower of Xe- nocrates 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. Folemo gave his attention mainly to ethics, and es- teemed 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. In literature he most ad- mired 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, ac- cording to Diogenes, several treatises, none of which were extant in the time of Suidas. There is, however, a quotation made by Clemens Alexandrinus, either from him or from another philosopher of the same name, iv rote; TTipi tov Kara <pvmv jiiov (Strom, vii, 117), and another passage (Sti-om. ii, 410) upon happiness, which agrees precisely with the statement of Cicero (De Fin. iv, 6), that Polemo placed the summum bonum in living according to the laws of nature. Cicero gives (Acad. Pr. ii, 43) the following as Polemo's ethical principles : "Honeste vivere, fruentem rebus iis, quas primas ho- mini natura conciliat." See Diog. Laert. iv, 16-20 ; Suid. s. v.; Plut. De A did. et Amic. 32. p. 71 e ; Lucian, Bis Aecusat. 16 (ii, 811); Athen. ii, 44 e; Cic. Acad, i, 9; ii, 35, 42; De Oral, iii, 18; De Fin. ii, 6, 11; iv, 2, 6, 16, 18 ; v, 1, 5, 7, et al.; Horat. Serm. ii, 3, 253 fol. ; Val. Max. vi, 9 ; Menag. A d Diog. Laert. 1. c. ; Fabri- cius, Bibl. Grcec. iii, 183 ; comp. p. 323, note hhh ; Smith, Dirt, of Or. and Rom. Bioff. and Mythol. s. v. ; Ueber- weg, Hist, of Philos. i, 133-135; Butler, Hist, of Anc. Philos. (see Index).