A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Πολύκλειτος), Polyclitus, historical.

1. An officer appointed by Ptolemy to command the fleet sent under Menelaus to Cyprus in B. C. 315. From thence Polycleitus was detached with a fleet of fifty ships to support the partisans of Ptolemy and Cassander in the Peloponnese, but, finding on his arrival there that there was no longer occasion for his services, he returned with his fleet to Cilicia. Here he received intelligence that a fleet under Theodotus, and a land force under Perilaus, were advancing to the support of Antigonus, and hastened to intercept them. Both one and the other were surprised and totally defeated; the two commanders and the whole fleet fell into the hands of Polycleitus, who returned with them to Egypt, where he was received with the utmost by Ptolemy. (Diod. 19.62, 64.)