A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Ἰούλιος Πολυδεύκης, (of Naucratis in Egypt, was a Greek sophist and grammarian. He received instruction in criticism from his father, and afterwards went to Athens, where he studied rhetoric under the sophist Adrian. He opened a private school at Athens, where he gave instruction in grammar and rhetoric, and was subsequently appointed by the emperor Commodus to the chair of rhetoric at Athens. He died during the reign of Commodus at the age of fifty-eight, leaving a young son behind him. We may therefore assign A. D. 183 as the year in which he flourished. (Suidas, s. v. Πολυδεύκης ; Philostr. Vit. Soph. 2.12.) Philostratus praises his critical skiil, but speaks unfavourably of his rhetorical powers, and implies that he gained his professor's chair from Commodus simply by his mellifluous voice. He seems to have been attacked by many of his contemporaries on account of the inferior character of his oratory, and especially by Lucian in his Ρ̓ητόρων διδάσκαλος, as was supposed by the ancients and has been maintained by many modern writers (see especially C. F. Ranke, Comment. de Polluce et Luciano, Quedlinburg, 1831). though Hemsterhuis, from the natural partiality of an editor for his author, stoutly denies this supposition, and believes that Lucian intended to satirize a certain Dioscorides. It has also been conjectutred that Lucian attacks Pollux in his Lexiphanes, and that he alludes to him with contempt in a passage of the De Saltatione (100.33, p. 287, ed. Reitz). Athenodorus, who taught at Athens at the same time as Pollux, was likewise one of his detractors. (Philostr. Vit. Soph. 2.14.) We know nothing more of the life of Pollux, except that he was the teacher of the sophist Antipater, who taught in the reign of Alexander Severus. (Philostr. Ibid. 2.24.)