Polychares (Olympian)

Polychares ( ancient Greek Πολυχάρης ) was a Messenian who lived in 764 BC. BC won the stadium run during the fourth Olympic Games . It is said to have been the cause of the outbreak of the First Messenian War .

According to Pausanias , Polychares gave his cattle to the Spartan Euaiphnos ( Εὔαιφνος ) to graze . He betrayed him, sold the cattle and claimed they had been robbed. When the truth emerged, Euaiphnos killed the son of Polychares who wanted to get the money for the cattle sold from him. Angry that the Spartans did not respond to his charges, Polychares killed several Spartans, whereupon his extradition to Sparta was demanded. The Messenians disagreed and convened the council, with King Androkles in favor of extradition, but his brother Antiochus against, pointing out that the Spartans, for their part, had not extradited the Euaiphnes. There were violent clashes in which Androkles was killed, and the followers of Antiochus retained the upper hand, which is why Polychares was not extradited. These events as well as the earlier murder of the Spartan king Teleklos in the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis were given by Pausanias as the cause of the First Messenian War.

The historicity of literarily decorated events is assessed differently in research.

swell

• Pausanias 4,4.5-4,5.2; 4,5,6
• Diodor Siculus 8.7
• Eusebius , Chronikon on the 4th Olympic Games

literature

• Nino Luraghi : The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-85587-7 , pp. 81 f. 95 f.
• Mischa Meier : Aristocrats and Damods. Investigations into the inner development of Sparta in the 7th century BC And on the political function of the poetry of Tyrtaios. Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07430-9 , pp. 86-87.
• Konrat Ziegler : Polychares. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XXI, 2, Stuttgart 1952, Col. 1596.