Polydamas
Πουλυδάμας
(Πουλυδάμας).
1. Of Scotussa in Thessaly, son of Nicias, conquered in the Pancratium at the Olympic games, in Ol. 93, B. C. 408. His size was immense, and the most marvellous stories are related of his strength, how he killed without arms a huge and fierce lion on mount Olympus, how he stopped a chariot at full gallop, &c. His reputation led the Persian king, Dareius Ochus, to invite him to his court, where he performed similar feats. (Euseb. Ἐλλ. ὀλ. p. 41; Paus. 6.5, 7.27.6, who calls him Πουλυδάμας; Diod. Fragm. vol. ii. p. 640, ed. Wesseling; Lucian, Quomodo Hist. conscrib. 35, et alibi; Suidas, s.v. Πολυδάμας; Krause, Olympia, p. 360.)
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.