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Marcus Antonius Polemon

Marcus Antonius Polemon

c. 90 CEc. 144 CE · Smyrna

Marcus Antonius Polemon (c. 90-144 CE) was a Greek orator of the Second Sophistic, based at Smyrna, where he was a leading public figure and enjoyed the favor of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. He was one of the most celebrated and influential sophists of his age, and a treatise on physiognomy (judging character from appearance) attributed to him survives mainly in later translation. He is prominently featured in Philostratus's 'Lives of the Sophists.'

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SmyrnaIonia (Asia Minor)

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About Smyrna

Smyrna, modern İzmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was a leading Ionian Greek polis and a major center of rhetoric and learning under Rome. The sophist Marcus Antonius Polemon taught there, the orator Aelius Aristides was closely associated with the city, and it was one of several places claiming to be the birthplace of Homer. The mathematician Theon of Smyrna and the epic poet Quintus Smyrnaeus take their names from it.

In Smyrna at the same time

Theon Smyrnaeus, Aelius Aristides

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Marcus Antonius Polemon’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

Theon Smyrnaeus, Aelius Aristides

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Marcus Antonius Polemon’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(1)