Everything about Polemon Scholarch totally explained
Polemon of Athens was an eminent Platonic philosopher and
Plato's third successor as scholarch or head of the
Academy from
314/
313 to
270/
269 BC. A pupil of
Xenocrates, he believed that
philosophy 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.
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, 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.) he died in 270/269 BC (or possibly, as in some manuscripts,
276/
275 BC).
Diogenes Laërtius also says that he died at a great age, and of natural decay.
Philosophy, associations, and literary interests
He esteemed the object of
philosophy to be, to exercise men in things and deeds, not in
dialectic speculations; his character was grave and severe; and he took pride in displaying the mastery which he'd acquired over emotions of every sort.
He was a close follower of Xenocrates in all things, and an intimate friend of
Crates and
Crantor, who were his disciples, as well as
Zeno and
Arcesilaus; Crates was his successor in the
Academy.
In literature he most admired
Homer and
Sophocles, and he's said to have been the author of the remark, that Homer is an
epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a
tragic Homer.
Writings
He left, according to Diogenes, several treatises, none of which were extant when the
Suda was compiled. There is, however, a quotation made by
Clement of Alexandria, 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, that Polemon placed the
summum bonum (highest good) in living according to the laws of nature.
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