Polyidus ( grc-gre, Πολύϊδος, also Πολύειδος or Πολυείδης; fl. c. 400 BC) was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

dithyrambic poet who was also skillful as a painter; he seems to have been esteemed almost as highly as

Timotheus of Miletus Timotheus of Miletus ( grc, Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 446 – 357 BC) was a Greek musician and dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the S ...

. One of his pupils, Philotas, once defeated Timotheus in competition. According to

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

(De Mm. 21, p. 1138, b.), Polyidus outdid Timotheus in those intricate variations, for the introduction of which the musicians of this period are so frequently attacked by contemporaries. In '' Poetics'' 17,

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

mentions the example of "Polyidus the Sophist" in bringing the action vividly before the hearer. The example is drawn from the myth of

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; grc-gre, Ὀρέστης ) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness an ...

: "On his coming he was arrested, and about to be sacrificed, when he revealed who he was—either as

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars a ...

puts it, or (as suggested by Polyidus) by the not improbable exclamation, ’So I too am doomed to be sacrificed, as my sister was’".

References

William Smith. ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. III, p. 466
Ancient Greek painters Ancient Greek poets 5th-century BC poets Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 5th-century BC painters {{Greece-painter-stub