Polyxenos (Syracuse)
Polyxenos (Latin Polyxenus) was a Greek nobleman in Sicily who served the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse as a military and diplomat.
He was the brother-in-law of the Syracusan politician and general Hermokrates , who lived in 407 BC. Died in street fighting in Syracuse, a member of the aristocratic elite of the city. He was one of the comrades-in-arms of the up-and-coming young Dionysius, probably supported him actively in the achievement of sole rule and married his sister Theste. Together with the (later) historian Philistos and others, he belonged to the closest advisory group to the tyrant, who formed a kind of council of state.
After the catastrophe of Katane (397 BC), when a Carthaginian attack on Syracuse was imminent, Dionysios I sent Polyxenus to southern Italy and the Peloponnese to recruit mercenaries and to ask for the help of the Greeks there, especially Spartas and Corinth . Early summer 396 BC After successfully completing his mission, Polyxenus returned to Syracuse with 30 warships and the Spartan Pharakidas, an experienced naval officer from the Lysander region. With this auxiliary fleet, the besieged Syracusans succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on the Carthaginians at sea and in turning the war around.
In an Athenian inscription from the year 393 BC Polyxenus is mentioned next to the ruler Dionysius I and his brothers Leptines and Thearides.
387 BC Dionysius I sent his brother-in-law Polyxenus to the Aegean Sea with a fleet of 20 triremes to support the Spartan fleet. With his ships and their appearance on the Hellespont in the autumn of 387, Polyxenus was able to make a decisive contribution to breaking Athens' resistance to the general peace sought by Sparta, the so-called " royal peace ".
Around 386/385 BC BC Polyxenus (like Philistos and Leptines, the tyrant's brother) fell out of favor with Dionysius I and had to flee Sicily without being able to take his wife Theste into exile. Dionysius I suspected his sister to have known about her husband's escape. Theste rejected this suspicion and replied to the tyrant that she would then have sailed with him and participated in his fate. Her fearless reprimand of the tyrant was famous in antiquity: “I knew nothing about it; for otherwise it would have always been more creditable for me to be called the wife of the exiled Polyxenus than your sister, the tyrant. ”The bold answer of Thestes is said to have made her extremely popular with the people of Syracuse.
Polyxenus may have died in exile as nothing is known about his return to Syracuse.
literature
- Karl Friedrich Stroheker : Dionysius I figure and history of the tyrant of Syracuse. Wiesbaden 1958.
Remarks
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Polyxenus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Syracusan nobleman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 5th century BC Chr. |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 385 BC Chr. |