POLO, MARCO, a celebrated traveller, born in Venice of a noble family in 1271; accompanied his father and uncle while a mere youth to the court of the Great Khan, the Tartar emperor of China, by whom he was received with favour and employed on several embassies; unwilling to part with him the emperor allowed him along with his father and uncle to escort a young princess who was going to be married to a Persian prince on the promise that they would return, but the prince having died before their arrival, and deeming themselves absolved from their promise by his death, they moved straight home for Venice, where they arrived in 1295, laden with rich presents which had been given them; having fallen into the hands of the Genoese in a hostile expedition, Marco was put in prison, where he wrote the story of his adventures, originally in French it would seem, which proved to be the first account that opened up to wondering Europe the magnificence of the Eastern world (1255-1323).

POLYANDRY, the name given to a form of polygamy met with among certain rude races, under which a woman is united and lives in marriage to several husbands.

POLYBIUS, a Greek historian, born at Megalopolis, in Arcadia; sent to Rome as a hostage, he formed an intimate friendship with Scipio AEmilianus, who aided him in his historical researches, and whom he accompanied to Africa on the expedition which issued in the destruction of Carthage, after which he returned to Greece and began his literary labours, the fruit of which was a history of Greece and Rome from 220 to 146 B.C. in 40 books, of which 5 have come down to us complete, a work characterised by accurate statement of facts and sound judgment of their import, written with a purpose to instruct in practical wisdom; he has been called “the first pragmatical historian” (204-122 B.C.).

POLYCARP, bishop of Smyrna, one of the early Fathers of the Church, a disciple of the Apostles and in particular of St. John; was for nearly 70 years bishop, and suffered martyrdom for refusing to renounce Christ, “after having served Him,” as he said, “for 86 years”; of his writings the only one extant is an “Epistle to the Philippians,” the genuineness of which, at one time questioned, is now established, and is of value chiefly in questions affecting the canon of Scripture and the origin of the Church.

POLYCRATES, the tyrant of Samos, and friend of Anacreon and art and literature generally; formed an alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, struck with his prosperity, ascribed it to the envy of the gods, insinuating that they intended his ruin thereby, and advised him, in order to avert his impending doom, to throw the most valuable of his possessions into the sea, upon which he threw a signet ring of great price and beauty, to find it again in the mouth of a fish a fisherman had sold him; still, though upon this Amasis broke alliance with him, his prosperity clung to him, till one day he was allured by a Persian satrap, his enemy, away from Samos, and by him crucified to death, 521 B.C.