Not proofread: Created page with "<section begin="s1"/>It would be hard for a modern critic to rate Polyclitus so high: the reason is that balance, rhythm and the minute perfection of bodily form, which were t..."
New page
<noinclude><pagequality level="1" user="Slowking4" /><div class="pagetext">{{rh|{{x-larger| }}|{{x-larger|{{uc|POLYCRATES—POLYGAMY}}}}|{{x-larger|23}}}}<!-- replace "Foo" and "Bar" with the header from the page, delete and input page numbers as appropriate -->
</noinclude><section begin="s1"/>It would be hard for a modern critic to rate Polyclitus so high:
the reason is that balance, rhythm and the minute perfection of
bodily form, which were the great merits of this sculptor, do not
appeal to us as they did to the Greeks of the 5th century. He
worked mainly in bronze. ' ' .
As regards his chronology we have data in a papyrus published
by Grenfell and Hunt containing lists of athletic victors.
From this it appears that he made a statue of Cyniscus, a victorious
athlete of 464 or 460 B.C., of Pythocles (4 52) and Aristion
(4 52). He thus can scarcely have been born as late as 480 B.C.
His statue of Hera is dated by Pliny to 420 B.c. His artistic
activity must thus have been long and prolific.
Copies of his spearman (doryphorus) (see GREEK ART, Plate VI.
fig. 80), and his victor winding a ribbon round his head (diadumenus)
have long been recognized in our galleries. We see their
excellence, but they inspire no enthusiasm, because they are
more fleshy than modern figures of athletes, and want charm.
They are chiefly valuable as showing us the square forms of body
affected by Polyclitus, and the scheme he adopted, throwing
the weight of the body (as Pliny says of him) on one leg. We
must not, however, judge of a great Greek sculptor by Roman
copies of his works. This has been enforced by the discovery at
Delos, by the French excavators, of a diadumenus of far more
pleasing type and greater finish, which also goes back to Polyclitus.
The excavations at Olympia'have also greatly widened
our knowledge of the sculptor. Among the bases of statues
found on that site were three signed by Polyclitus, still bearing
on their surface the marks of attachment of the feet of the
statues. This at once gives us their pose; and following up the
clue, A. Furtwangler has identified several extant statues as
copies of figures of boy athletes victorious at Olympia set up by
Polyclitus. Among these the Westmacott athlete in the British
Museum is conspicuous. And it is certain that these boys,
although the anatomy of their bodies seems to be too mature, yet
have a real charm, combining beauty of form with modesty and
unaffected simplicity. They enable us better to understand the
merit of the sculptor.
The Amazon of Polyclitus survives in several copies, among
the best of which is one in the British Museum (for its type see
GREEK ART, fig. 4o). Here again we find a certain heaviness;
and the womanly character of the Amazon scarcely appears
through her robust limbs. But the Amazon of Pheidias, if
rightly identified, is no better. The masterpiece of Polyclitus,
his Hera of gold and ivory, has of course totally disappeared.
The coins of Argos give us only the general type. Many archaeologists
have tried to find a copy of the head. The most defensible
of all these identifications is that of C. Waldstein, who
shows that a head of a girl in the British Museum (labelled as
Polyclitan) corresponds so nearly with that of Hera on 5th
century coins of Argos that We must regard it as a reflex of the
head of the great statue. It seems very hard and cold beside
such noble heads of the goddess as those in the Ludovisi Gallery
(Terme Museum) Rome. American archaeologists have in
recent years conducted excavations on the site of the Argive
temple of Hera (ARGOS and GREEK ART, fig. 39); but the sculptural
fragments, heads and torsos, which seem to belong to the
temple erected in the time of Polyclitus, have no close stylistic
resemblance to other statues recognized as his; and at present
their position in the history of art is matter of dispute.
The want of variety in the works of Polyclitus was brought as
a reproach against him by ancient critics. Varro says that his
statues were square and almost of one pattern. We have
already observed that there was small variety in their attitudes.
Except for the statue of Hera, which was the work of his old
age, he produced' scarcely any notable statue of a deity. His
field was narrowly limited; but in that 1'ield he was unsurpassed.
2. The younger Polyclitus was of the same family as the elder,
and the works of the two are not easily to be distinguished.
Some existing bases, however, bearing the name are inscribed
in characters of the 4th century, at which time the elder sculptor
cannot have been alive. The most noted work of the younger
artist was a statue in marble of Zeus Milichius (the Merciful)
set up by the people of Argos after a shameful massacre which
took place in 370 B.C. The elder artist is not known to have
worked in marble. (P. G.)
<section end="s1"/>
<section begin="s2"/>'''POLYCRATES''', tyrant of Samos (c. 535-515 B.c.). Having won popularity by donations to poorer citizens, he took advantage
of a festival of Hera, which was being celebrated outside
the walls, to make himself master of the city (about 53 5 B.c.).
After getting rid of his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson, who
had at first shared his power, he established a despotism which
is of great importance in the history of the island. Realizing
clearly the value of sea-power for a Greek state, he equipped
a fleet of 100 ships, and so became master of the Aegean basin.
This ascendancy he abused by numerous acts of piracy which
made him notorious throughout Greece; but his real purpose
in building his navy was to become lord of all the islands of the
archipelago and the mainland towns of Ionia. The details
of his conquests are uncertain, but it is known that in the
Cyclades he maintained an alliance with the tyrant Lygdamis
of Naxos, and curried favour with the Delian, Apollo by dedicating
to him the island of Rheneia. He also encountered and
heavily defeated a coalition of two great naval powers of the
Asiatic coast, Miletus and Lesbos. Doubtless with the object
of expanding the liourishing foreign trade of Samos, he entered
into alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, according to
Herodotus, renounced his ally because he feared that the gods,
in envy of Polycrates' excessive good fortune, would bring
ruin upon him and his allies. It is more probable that the
breach of the compact was due to Polycrates, for when Cambyses
of Persia invaded Egypt (525) the Samian tyrant offered to
support him with a naval contingent. Thissquadron never
reached Egypt, for the crews, composed as they were of Polycrates
political enemies, suspecting that Cambyses was under
agreement to slay them, put back to Samos and attacked their
master. After a defeat by sea, Polycrates repelled an assault
upon the walls, and subsequently withstood a siege by a joint
armament of Spartans and Corinthians assembled to aid the
rebels. He maintained his ascendancy until about 515, when
Oroetes, the Persian governor of Lydia, who had been reproached
for his failure to reduce Samos by force, lured him to the
mainland by false promises of gain and put him to death by
crucifixion.
Beside the political and commercial pre-eminence which he
conferred upon Samos, Polycrates adorned the city with public
works on a large scale-an aqueduct, a mole and a temple of
Hera (see SAMOS; AQUEDUCTS). The splendour of his palace
is attested by the proposal of the Roman emperor Caligula to
rebuild it. Foreign artists worked for him at high wages;
from Athens he brought Democedes, the greatest physician of
the age, at an exceptional salary. He was also a patron of
letters: he collected a library and lived on terms of intimate
friendship with the poet Anacreon, whose verses were full of
references to his patron. The philosopher Pythagoras, however,
quitted Samos in order to escape his tyranny. 'i (M. O. B. C.)
<section end="s2"/>
<section begin="s3"/>'''POLYCRATES''', Athenian sophist and rhetorician, flourished in the 4th century B.c. He taught at Athens, and afterwards in Cyprus. He composed declamations on paradoxical themes an Encomium on Clytaemnestra, an Accusation of Socrates, an Emomium on Busiris (a mythical king of Egypt, notorious for his inhumanity); also declamations on mice, pots and counters. His Enoomium on Busiris was sharply criticized by Isocrates, in a work still extant, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus characterizes his style as frigid, vulgar and inelegant.
<section end="s3"/>
<section begin="s4"/>'''POLYGAMY''', (Gr. 1|'0)l9S, many, and 'yd/.¢os, marriage), or as it is sometimes termed, POLYGYNY ('yu1/fy, woman), the system under which a man is married to several women at the same time. Derivatively it includes the practice of polyandry, but it has become definitely restricted to expressing what has been, and still is, far the commonest type of relations between the sexes (see FAMILY and MARRIAGE). Among Oriental nations plurality of legal wives is customary. Mahommedans are allowed four. A Hindu can have as many as he pleases: the high-caste sometimes having as many as a hundred. Polygamy is the rule among<section end="s4"/><noinclude><references/></div></noinclude>