POLYCLITUS (0514-ki1'tils) OF SIC YON, Greek sculptor and architect. He was a pupil of the sculptor Ageladas, of Argos, in whose studio he became feljow-student of Phidias. He flourished 452-412 a.c. He stood at the head of the schools of Argos and Sicyon, and is held to rival Phidias, the head of the Athenian school. The latter was considered pre-eminent for his statues of the gods, and Polyclitus in those of men. He excelled par ticularly in representing the graceful attitudes of youthful athletes. One of his most cele brated statues was the Doryphorus (Spear bearer), a figure to which the name of canon, or standard of beauty, was given, as in it the artist had produced a perfect ideal of the human form. Another statue of a young man, called 'Diadumenos,) represented the subject fasten ing a band around his head. A group of two naked boys called 'Astragalizontes; playing with bones the game of tah, is also celebrated, as are some statues of Canephorw, female figures carrying baskets on their heads. His
statue of Hera, in the temple between Argos and Mycente, was thought by Strabo to be equal to Phidias' chryselephantine statues of Zeus and of Athena. The goddess was repre sented enthroned, wearing a garland on which were wrought the Graces and Hours; in one hand she held a pomegranate, and in the other a sceptre surmounted by a cuckoo. The head, breast, arms and feet were of ivory, and the robe of gold. As an architect Polyclitus won special fame from the theatre and rotunda, which he designed for Epidarus, which Paus anias pronounced to be the finest buildings of their kind ever erected. Polyclitus also wrote a treatise on the proportions of the human form. In addition to his fame as a statuary he has that of an able architect. One of his works, the theatre within the precincts of the temple of €sculapius, at Epidaurus, was considered by Pausamas superior for its symmetry and beauty to any similar edifice extant.