The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

V

TIMAEUS

169

not possessed other features which we should mark
as his weak points. When he came to Athens he
studied rhetoric under a pupil of Isocrates, and his
work had characteristics which we expect from the
Isocratean school, such as speeches packed with
commonplaces, and the conventional administration
of praise and blame. IHe had also weaknesses of
his own. He was a thorough pedant, without
sense of proportion or the faculty to discriminate
weighty from trivial things; interested in disconnected details; fond of fables and marvels. He
was also something of a mystic. He sought to
show, for instance, that to every sinner punishment, unmistakable as such, was meted out, and
that coincidences of date had a transcendent significance; he was ever on the watch for the revelation
of mysterious or daemonic influences in historical
events. Again,his history of the contemporary period
must have been far from impartial. His extravagant admiration of Timoleon was the counterpart
of his failure to recognise any but the worst qualities
of Agathocles, whom he hated on account of his
own banishment, which had embittered his mind.
Living in the Attic atmosphere and trained in
Isocratean rhetoric, we should expect to find Timaeus
conforming to the canons of Attic style. But it
appears that he adopted a new kind of writing
which bade farewell to the traditions of Attic taste.
It is impossible to decide whether he struck out
this new way for himself, or came under the
influence of Hegesias of Magnesia, who is always