Polychares
Πολυχάρης
(Πολυχάρης), a Messenian, and the conqueror in the 4th Olympiad (B. C. 764), is celebrated as the immediate cause of the first Messenian war, B. C. 743. Having been wronged by the Lacedaemonian Euaephnus, he took revenge by aggressions upon other Lacedaemonians; and as the Messenians would not deliver him up to the Spartans, war was eventually declared by the latter against Messenia. (Paus. 4.4.5, &c.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.