Pŏlĕmon, a youth of Athens, son of Philostratus. He was much given to debauchery and extravagance, and spent the greatest part of his life in riot and drunkenness. He once, when intoxicated, entered the school of Xenocrates, while the philosopher was giving his pupils a lecture upon the effects of intemperance, and he was so struck with the eloquence of the academician, and the force of his arguments, that from that moment he renounced the dissipated life he had led, and applied himself totally to the study of philosophy. He was then in the 30th year of his age, and from that time he never drank any other liquor but water; and after the death of Xenocrates he succeeded in the school where his reformation had been affected. He died about 270 years before Christ, in an extreme old age. Diogenes Laërtius, Lives.—Horace, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 254.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 6, ch. 9.——A son of Zeno the rhetorician, made king of Pontus by Antony. He attended his patron in his expedition against Parthia. After the battle of Actium, he was received into favour by Augustus, though he had fought in the cause of Antony. He was killed some time after by the barbarians near the Palus Mæotis, against whom he had made war. Strabo.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus.——His son, of the same name, was confirmed on his father’s throne by Roman emperors, and the province of Cilicia was also added to his kingdom by Claudius.——An officer in the army of Alexander, intimate with Philotas, &c. Curtius, bk. 7, ch. 1, &c.——A rhetorician at Rome, who wrote a poem on weights and measures still extant. He was master to Perseus the celebrated satirist, and died in the age of Nero.——A sophist of Laodice in Asia Minor, in the reign of Adrian. He was often sent to the emperor with an embassy by his countrymen, which he executed with great success. He was greatly favoured by Adrian, from whom he extracted much money. In the 56th year of his age he buried himself alive, as he laboured with the gout. He wrote declamations in Greek.
Polemonium, now Vatija, a town of Pontus, at the east of the mouth of the [♦]Thermodon.
[♦] ‘Theomodon’ replaced with ‘Thermodon’
Polias, a surname of Minerva, as protectress of cities.
Polichna, a town of Troas on Ida. Herodotus, bk. 6, ch. 28.——Another of Crete. Thucydides, bk. 2, ch. 85.
Polieia, a festival at Thebes in honour of Apollo, who was represented there with grey hair (πολιος), contrary to the practice of all other places. The victim was a bull, but when it happened once that no bull could be found, an ox was taken from the cart and sacrificed. From that time the sacrifice of labouring oxen was deemed lawful, though before it was looked upon as a capital crime.
Poliorcētes (destroyer of cities), a surname given to Demetrius son of Antigonus. Plutarch, Demetrius.
Polisma, a town of Troas, on the Simois. Strabo, bk. 13.
Polistrătus, an Epicurean philosopher born the same day as Hippoclides, with whom he always lived in the greatest intimacy. They both died at the same hour. Diogenes Laërtius.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 1.
Polītes, a son of Priam and Hecuba, killed by Pyrrhus in his father’s presence. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 2, li. 526, &c. His son, who bore the same name, followed Æneas into Italy, and was one of the friends of young Ascanius. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 5, li. 564.