Polemon was a Stoic philosopher

Stoicism

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...

 and geographer

Geographer

A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...

. Of Athenian

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 citizenship, he is known as Polemon of Athens, but he was born either in Ilium

Ilium

-Places:* Ilion or, Latinized, Ilium, another name for the legendary city of Troy, hence the title of Homer's Iliad*Ilium , an ancient city in Epirus...

, Samos

Samoš

Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...

, or Sicyon

Sicyon

Sikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia...

, and is also known as Polemon of Ilium and Polemon Periegetes. He travelled throughout Greece, and wrote about the places he visited. He also compiled a collection of the epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s he saw on the monuments and votive offerings. None of these works survive, but many later writers quote from them.

Life

Polemon was the son of Euegetes, and he was a contemporary of Aristophanes of Byzantium

Aristophanes of Byzantium

Aristophanes of Byzantium was a Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. Born in Byzantium about 257 BC, he soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus,...

 and Ptolemy Epiphanes. He was a follower of the Stoic philosopher Panaetius

Panaetius

Panaetius of Rhodes was a Stoic philosopher. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines to the city. After the death of Scipio in 129, he returned to the Stoic school in Athens, and was its last...

. He made extensive journeys throughout Greece to collect materials for his geographical works, in the course of which he paid particular attention to the inscriptions on votive offerings and on columns, whence he obtained the surname of Stelokopas.

Works

In his travels, Polemon collected the epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s he found into a work On the inscriptions to be found in cities . In addition, other works of his are mentioned, upon the votive offerings and monuments in the Acropolis of Athens

Acropolis of Athens

The Acropolis of Athens or Citadel of Athens is the best known acropolis in the world. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as The Acropolis without qualification...

, at Lacedaemon, at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, and elsewhere, which no doubt contained copies of numerous epigrams. His works may have been a chief source of the Garland of Meleager

Meleager of Gadara

Meleager of Gadara was a poet and collector of epigrams. He wrote some satirical prose, now lost, and he wrote some sensual poetry, of which, 134 epigrams survive...

. Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

 and other writers make very numerous quotations from his works. They were chiefly descriptions of different parts of Greece; some are on paintings preserved in various places, and several are controversial, among which is one against Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...

.

Sir James Frazer considered him the most learned of all Greek antiquaries. "His acquaintance both with the monuments and with the literature seems to have been extensive and profound. The attention which he bestowed on inscriptions earned for him the nickname of the 'monument-tapper.'"