Polycles was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

sculptor who flourished about the 156th Olympiad (155 BC) and was mentioned in Pliny's ''

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

''. In Pliny's list, the name of this Polycles is followed by "Athenaeus", either to be taken as the name of another sculptor or as Polycles's birthplace. A ''Juno'' by him stood in the Portico of Octavia at Rome.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

, ''Natural History''
xxxvi.(4).35
The sculpture principally associated with this sculptor is a

Hermaphroditus In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus (; , ) was a child of Aphrodite and Hermes. According to Ovid, he was born a remarkably beautiful boy whom the naiad Salmacis attempted to rape and prayed to be united with forever. A god, in answer to her pra ...

, of which there are no clues in Pliny as to whether it was standing or reclining, but which the surviving Roman copies are taken to be replicas of Polycles' bronze original. The '' Borghese Hermaphroditus'' is said to be one of these copies.

References

Hellenistic sculptors 2nd-century BC Greek sculptors {{Ancient-Greek-bio-stub