POLYGRAPHY, POLYGRAPHIA, or Polygraphicæ, the art of writing in various unusual manners or ciphers; as also of deciphering the same. The word is formed from the Greek, πολύ, multum, and γραφία, scriptura, "writing."
The ancients seem to have been very little acquainted with this art; nor is there any mark of their having gone beyond the Lacedæmonian scytala. Trithemius, Porta, Vigenere, and Father Nicéron, have written on the subject of polygraphy or ciphers. See CIPHER.
POLYHYMΝΙΑ, in the pagan mythology, one of the nine muses, thus named from the Greek words πολύ "much," and μνήμη "memory." She presided over history, or rather rhetoric; and is represented with a crown of pearls and a white robe; her right hand in action as if haranguing, and holding in her left a caduceus or sceptre to show her power.