(fl 7th century bce). Greek composer. He wrote nomoi (see Nomos) sung to the aulos, and epic and elegiac poetry, but nothing of his work has survived. From Asia Minor he went to Sparta, where with Thaletas, Sacadas and others he brought about a revival of poetry and especially of music; he is doubtfully associated with the Orthios Nomos by Pseudo-Plutarch, who mentions him several times in his discussion of the nomos (On Music, 1132c–1135c) and also attributes to him (1141b) the invention of the Hypolydian tonos and the use of such special intervals as eklusis (a descending interval of three dieses) and ekbole (an ascending interval of five dieses). Pindar (Bowra, frag.178) spoke of him as a famous poet, and the comic dramatist Cratinus, Pindar's contemporary, mentioned his compositions (Kock, frag.305). Later, however, Aristophanes (Knights, 1287) associated them with sexual depravity. This divergence from the remainder of the tradition is puzzling, since the works of a poet-composer prominent in 7th-century Sparta are not likely to have been licentious.
J.M. Edmonds, ed. and trans.: Lyra graeca, i (London and Cambridge, MA, 1922, 2/1928/R), 38ff
C.M. Bowra, ed.: Pindari carmina cum fragmentis (Oxford, 1935, 2/1947/R)
B. Einarson and P.H. De Lacy, ed. and trans.: Plutarch's Moralia, xiv (London and Cambridge, MA, 1967)
U. Knoche: ‘Polymnestos’, Der kleine Pauly, ed. K. Ziegler and W. Sontheimer, iv (Stuttgart, 1972), 1007 only
D.A. Campbell, ed. and trans.: Greek Lyric, ii (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1988), 330–35
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN