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Polemon of Athens was an eminent Platonic philosopher and Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's third successor as scholarch
Scholarch

A scholarch is the head of a school. The term was especially used for the heads of schools of philosophy in ancient Athens, such as the Platonic Academy, whose first scholarch was Plato himself....
 or head of the Academy
Platonic Academy

For the Raphael painting, see The School of AthensThe Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Classical Athens. It persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a philosophical skepticism school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC....
 from 314/313 to 270/269 BC. A pupil of Xenocrates
Xenocrates

Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, and leader of the Platonic Academy from 339 to 314 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato's, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements....
, he believed that philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 should be practiced rather than just studied. Like most philosophers of the Hellenistic era, he thought that the supreme good was to live according to Nature
Nature

File:Jungle in Punjab.JPGNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe....
.

mon was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political distinction.






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Polemon of Athens was an eminent Platonic philosopher and Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's third successor as scholarch
Scholarch

A scholarch is the head of a school. The term was especially used for the heads of schools of philosophy in ancient Athens, such as the Platonic Academy, whose first scholarch was Plato himself....
 or head of the Academy
Platonic Academy

For the Raphael painting, see The School of AthensThe Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Classical Athens. It persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a philosophical skepticism school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC....
 from 314/313 to 270/269 BC. A pupil of Xenocrates
Xenocrates

Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, and leader of the Platonic Academy from 339 to 314 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato's, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements....
, he believed that philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 should be practiced rather than just studied. Like most philosophers of the Hellenistic era, he thought that the supreme good was to live according to Nature
Nature

File:Jungle in Punjab.JPGNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe....
.

Life

Polemon was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political distinction. In his youth, he was extremely profligate; but one day, when he was about thirty, on his bursting into the school of Xenocrates
Xenocrates

Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, and leader of the Platonic Academy from 339 to 314 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato's, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements....
, at the head of a band of revellers, his attention was so arrested by the discourse, which the master continued calmly in spite of the interruption, and which chanced to be 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 frequent the school, of which, on the death of Xenocrates, he became the head, in 315 BC. According to Eusebius (Chron.
Chronicon (Eusebius)

The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in 325 AD....
) he died in 270/269 BC (or possibly, as in some manuscripts, 276/275 BC). Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
 also says that he died at a great age, and of natural decay.

Philosophy, associations, and literary interests

He esteemed the object of philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 to be, to exercise men in things and deeds, not in dialectic
Dialectic

Dialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues....
 speculations; his character was grave and severe; and he took pride in displaying the mastery which he had acquired over emotions of every sort.

He was a close follower of Xenocrates in all things, and an intimate friend of Crates
Crates of Athens

Crates of Athens was the son of Antigenes of the Thriasian deme, the pupil and friend of Polemon , and his successor as scholarch of the Platonic Academy, perhaps about 270 BC....
 and Crantor
Crantor

Crantor was a Greece philosopher of the Old Academy, born probably about the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli, Cilicia in Cilicia....
, who were his disciples, as well as Zeno
Zeno of Citium

Zeno of Citium was a Greeks philosopher from Citium , Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy which he taught in Athens, from about 300 BC....
 and Arcesilaus
Arcesilaus

Arcesilaus was a Greece philosopher and founder of the Second or Middle Platonic Academy—the skepticism phase of the Academy. Arcesilaus succeeded Crates of Athens as head of the Academy c....
; Crates was his successor in the Academy
Platonic Academy

For the Raphael painting, see The School of AthensThe Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Classical Athens. It persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a philosophical skepticism school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC....
.

In literature he most admired Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
 and Sophocles
Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
, and he is said to have been the author of the remark, that Homer is an epic
Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation....
 Sophocles, and Sophocles a tragic Homer.

Writings

He left, according to Diogenes, several treatises, none of which were extant when the Suda
Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine Empire Medieval Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. It is an Encyclopedia lexicon with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers....
 was compiled. There is, however, a quotation made by Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
, either from him or from another philosopher of the same name, "in Concerning the Life in Accordance with Nature" , and another passage, upon happiness, which agrees precisely with the statement of Cicero
Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
, that Polemon placed the summum bonum (highest good) in living according to the laws of nature.

Ancient sources

  • Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
    Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

    Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a biography of the Greek philosophers by Diogenes La?rtius, written in Ancient Greek, perhaps in the first half of the third century AD....
     iv. 16-20 (with the commentary of Gilles Ménage
    Gilles Ménage

    Gilles M?nage , was a France scholar.He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume M?nage, king's advocate at Angers, where Gilles was born.A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his literary and professional studies, and he practised at the bar at Angers before he was twenty....
    )
  • Suda, s.v.
  • Plutarch
    Plutarch

    Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
    , de Adul. et Amic. 32, p. 71e
  • Lucian
    Lucian

    Lucian of Samosata was an Assyrian people rhetorician, and satire who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature....
    , Bis Accusat. 16, vol. ii. p. 811
  • Athenaeus
    Athenaeus

    Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greeks rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century A.D. The Suda only tells us that he lived in the times of Marcus ; but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus shows that he survived that emperor....
    , Deipnosophistae
    Deipnosophistae

    The Deipnosophistae may be translated as The Banquet of the Learned or Philosophers at Dinner or The Gastronomers. The Deipnosophists is a long work of literary and antiquarian research by the Hellenistic civilization author Athenaeus of Naucratis in Egypt, written in Rome in the early 3rd century AD....
     ii., p. 44e
  • Cicero, Academica i. 9, ii. 35, 42; De Oratore
    De Oratore

    Historical context of composition of the workDe Oratore was written by Cicero in 55 BC. During this year, the author faces a difficult political situation, after his return from exile in Dyrrachium . His house was destroyed by the gangs of Clodius and he faced times where violence was quite an ordinary scenario, intertwinned with pol...
     iii. 18; de Finibus ii. 6, 11, iv. 2, 6, 16, 18, v. 1, 5, 7, and elsewhere
  • Horace
    Horace

    This article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English language world as Horace, was the leading Roman Empire Lyric poetry during the time of Augustus....
    , Sermones ii. 3. 253ff.
  • Valerius Maximus
    Valerius Maximus

    Valerius Maximus was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He flourished in the reign of Tiberius....
    , vi. 9