, (all
these forms occur, but the most usual is Πολύϊδος), a
dithyrambic poet of the most flourishing period of the later Athenian dithyramb, and also
skilful as a painter, was contemporary with Philoxenus, Timotheus, and Telestes, about Ol. 95,
B. C. 400. (Diod. 14.46.) The notices
of him are very scanty; but he seems to have been esteemed almost as highly as Timotheus, whom
indeed one of his pupils, Philotas, once conquered. It is related that, as Polyidus was
boasting of this victory, Stratonicus, the musician, rebuked him by saying, "I wonder you do
not understand that you make ψηφίσματα, but Timotheus
νόμους," an untranslateable witticism, intimating that
Timotheus had been conquered by the voice of the people, and not by the merit of his opponent.
(Ath. viii. p. 532b.) It seems from a passage of Plutarch (De Mus. 21, p.
1138b.), that Polyidus went beyond Timotheus in those intricate variations, for the
introduction of which the musicians of this period are so frequently attacked. A remarkable
testimony to his popularity throughout Greece is still extant in the form of a decree of the
Cnossians, commending Menecles of Teos for having played on the harp at Cnossus "after the
manner of Timotheus and Polyidus and the ancient Cretan poets, as becomes an accomplished
man." (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. Graec. vol. ii. p. 641, No. 3053.)
One of his pieces was entitled
Ἄτλας, and in it he
represented Atlas as a Libyan shepherd, whom Perseus turned into stone by showing him the
Gorgon's head; a remarkable example of the total want of ideal art, and of any poetical
conception of the early mythology, which characterised the dithyrambic poets of that period.
(Tzetzes, Schol. ad Lycophr. 879, Exeg. Iliad. p. 132. 18; Etym. May. p. 104. 20; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec.
p. 239, n.)
There are also two remarkable references in the Poetic (16, 17) of
Aristotle to the
Iphigeneia of Polyidus, where Aristotle is mentioning examples
of ἀναγνώρισις. But here it seems from the context that
a tragic poet is referred to; besides which it is improbable, Müller argues, that
Aristotle would speak of the celebrated dithyrambic poet, as he does in the first of these
passages, by the name of Πολυείδου τοῦ σοφιστοῦ. On
the other hand. there is the critical canon, which forbids us to assume an unknown person of
the same name as one well known, if any other probable explanation can be suggested. Perhaps,
in this case, the best solution of the difficulty is the conjecture of Welcker, that Polyidus
was a sophist, who took a pride in cultivating several different branches of art and
literature, and who thus was at once a painter, a dithyrambic poet, and a tragedian. There are
three iambic trimeter lines in Stobaeus (Serm. xciii.) which appear at
first sight to settle the point as to there having been a tragic poet of this name; but it is
easily shown that these lines are a quotation, not from a poet named Polyidus,but from the
Polyidus of Euripides. (Müller, Gesch. d. Griech. Litt. vol. ii. p.
287, or vol. ii. p. 59, Eng. trans.; Ulrici, Gesch. d. Hell. Dichtk. vol.
ii. pp. 610, fol.; Bode, Gesch. d. Hell. Dichtk. vol. ii. pt. 2. p. 323,
vol. iii. pt. 1, p. 562; Schmidt, Diatrib. in Dithyramb. pp. 121-124;
Kayser, Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. pp. 318-322; Welcker, die Griech. Trag. pp. 1043, 1044; Bartsch, de Chaeremone, p. 14;
Bernhardy, Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Griech. Litt. vol. ii. pp. 554, 555.) [P.S]