Polemon of Laodiceia

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Marcus Antonius Polemon or Antonius Polemon, also known as Polemon of Smyrna or Polemon of Laodiceia (name in Greek:ο Μάρκος Αντώνιος Πολέμων, 88-144) was a man of sophism who lived in the 2nd century.

Polemon was Anatolian Greek and originally came from a family of Roman Consular rank. He was born in Laodicea on the Lycus Phrygia (modern Turkey), however spent a great part of his life in Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey). Polemon from an early age was given by the citizens of Smyrna the highest honors of the city for which Polemon did to promote Smyrna’s prosperity.

Polemon was a highly celebrated man of sophism and rhetoric. He was highly influential and favored by the Roman Emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. In 135 by the command of Hadrian, Polemon said an oration as a dedication to the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece.

Polemon was the head of one of the foremost schools of rhetorics of the Hellenistic Culture in Smyrna. His style of oratory was imposing rather than pleasing; however his character was haughty and reserved. The only full surviving works of Polemon, was the funeral orations of the Athenians generals Callimachus and Cynaegeirus, who died at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. These orations are titled logoi epitaphioi (epitaphs). His rhetorical compositions were subjects that were taken from Athenian history. A treatise on physiognomy is preserved in a 14th century Arabic translation (translated into Latin by G. Hoffmann, Leipzig 1893).

Polemon died from voluntary starvation in the tomb of his ancestors at Laodicea, from which he suffered from gout. He had shut himself up in the tomb to die.

[edit] References

• M. W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome, Princeton (1995).
• M. D. Campanile, Note sul bios de Polemone, Studi ellenistici XII (1999), 269-315.
• Simon Swain (ed.), Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon's Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. ix, 699.
• http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2768.html