A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1144 TIMON. TIMON.
to our Timon or to Timon the misanthrope, or very admirable productions of their kind. (Diog.
whether they apply equally to both. 1. c.; Aristocles ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xiv. p. 763,
The writings of Timon are represented as very c.; Suid. s. vv. orLAAaivl, TIClov; Ath. passimn;
numerous. According to Diogenes, in the order of Gell. iii. 17.) Commentaries were written on the
whose statement there appears to be some confusion, Silli by Apollonides of Nicaea, as already menhe composed JErV, Kal TpayCp8ias, Kal aTcrapovs, tioned, and also by Sotion of Alexandria. (Ath.
Kal apcauava cwUlcKa'rptdaKoa,'rpayLKa se eit- viii. p. 336, d.) The poem entitled'IevaALo[, in
KorTa, o'Ayovs re Kcal,cva8lous. The double men- elegiac verse, appears to have been similar in its
tion of his tragedies raises a suspicion that Dio- subject to the Silli (Diog. Laert. ix. 65). IJiogenes
genes may have combined two different accounts of also mentions Timon's laaltoi (ix. 110), but perhis writings in this sentence; but perhaps it may haps the word is here merely used in the sense of
be explained by supposing the words Tpa-yla se satirical poems ill general, without reference to the
EtfcoTra to be inserted simply in order to put the metre.
number of his tragedies side by side with that of He also wrote in prose, to the quantity, Diogenes
his comedies. Some may find another difficulty in tells us, of twenty thousand lines. These works
the passage, on account of the great number and were no doubt on philosophical subjects, but all
variety of the poetical works ascribed to Timon; we know of their specific character is contained in
but this is nothing surprising in a writer of that the three references made by Diogenes to Timon's:age of universal imitative literature; nor, when works r'epl aca*O5acos, wrepl FsjrOTews, and KaTC
the early theatrical occupations of Timon are borne odpias.
in mind, is it at all astonishing that his taste for The fragments of his poems have been collected
the drama should have prompted him to the com- by H. Stephanus, in his PoEsis Philosoplica, 1573,
position of sixty tragedies and thirty comedies, 8vo.; by J. F. Langenrich,at the end of his Dissertabesides satyric dramas. One thing, however, it tioes Ill. de TimzoneSillographo, Lips. 1720, 1721,
is important to observe. The composition of tra- 1723, 4to.; by Brunck, in his Analecla, vol. ii.
gedies and comedies by the same author is an pp. 67, foell.; by F. A. W6lke, in his monograph
almost certain indication that his dramas were De Graecorum Syllis, Varsav. 1820, 8vo.; and by F.
intended only to be read, and not to be acted. No Paul, in his Dissertatio de Sillis, Berol. 1821, 8vo.
remains of his dramas have come down to us. (See also Creuzer and Daub's Studien, vol. vi.
Of his epic poems we know very little; but it pp. 302, foll.; Ant. Weland, Dissert. de praecip.
amy be presumed that they were chiefly ludicrous Parodiaruzm Homnericaruum Scriptoribus alud
or satirical poems in the epic form. Possibly his Graecos, pp. 50, foell. Getting. 1833, 8vo.; Fabric.
Python (IvdOwv), which contained a long account Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. pp. 623-625; Menag. ad
of a conversation with Pyrrhon, during a journey Diog. Lairt. 1. c.; Welcker, die Griecl. Tray#d.
to Pytho, may be referred to this class; unless it pp. 1268, 1269; Bode, Gesc]i. d. Hellen. Dichtk.
was in prose (Diog. ix. 64,105; Euseb. Praep. Ev. vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 345-347; Ulrici, vol. ii. p. 317;
xiv. p. 761, a.). It appears probable that his Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 495).
"ApceorsAaov 7repiserrvov 7rErp$eLr'/ov was a sa- 2. TIMON THE MISANTHROPE (6 41'dpaOpwrros)
tirical poem in epic verse (Diog. ix. 115; Ath. ix. is distinguished from Timon of Phlius by Diogenes
-p. 406, e.). Whether he wrote parodies on Homer (ix. 1] 2), but, as has been remarked above, it is
or whether he merely occasionally, in the course of not clear how much, or whether any part, of the.his writings, parodied passages of the Homeric information Diogenes gives respecting Timon is to
poems, cannot be determined with certainty from be referred to this Timon rather than the former.
the lines in his extant fragments which are evident There was a certain distant resemblance between
parodies of Homer, such, for example, as the verse their characters, which may have led to a confusion
preserved by Diogenes, of the one with the other. The great distinctions
VEG-7ErE civ /ot gawO 3 roU7Xrpdy/IoVES eorae 0-oo(prLrat, between them are, that Timon the misanthrope
wrote nothing, and that he lived about a century'which is an obvious parody on the Homeric invo- and a half earlier than Timon of Phlius, namely,
cation (11. ii. 484), at the time of the Peloponnesian war. The fewv'vEME7E iv'v MuO MoearLn'OAh61rmca UAada' EXoivoai. particulars that are known of Timnon the misanthrope
are contained in the passages in which he is atThe most celebrated of his poems, however, were tacked by Aristophanes (Lysist. 809, &c., Av.
the satiric compositions called Silli (oiXAAoi), a word 1548) and the other comic poets in the dialogue of
of somewhat doubtful etymology, but which un- Lucian, which bears his name (Timon, c. 7), and
doubtedly describes metrical compositions, of a in a few other passages of the ancient writers
character at once ludicrous and sarcastic. The (Plut. Anton. 70; Tzetz. Chil. vii. 273; Suid. s. v.)
invention of this species of poetry is ascribed to The comic poets who mention him, besides AristoXenophanes of Colophon. [XENOPHANES.] The phanes, are Phrynichus, Plato, and Antiphanes,
Silli of Timon were in three books, in the first of the last of whom made him the subject of one of
which he spoke in his own person, and the other his comedies. (See Meineke, Hist. Grit. Cozs.
two are in the form of a dialogue between the Graec. pp. 327, 328.) He was an Athenian, of
author and Xenophanes of Colophon, in which the demos of Colyttus, and his father's name was
Timon proposed questions, to which Xenophanes Echecratides. In consequence of the ingratitude
replied at length. The subject was a sarcastic he experienced, and the disappointments he sufaccount of the tenets of all philosophers, living and ered, from his early friends and companions, he
dead; an unbounded field for scepticism and satire. secluded himself entirely from the world, admitThey were in hexameter verse, and, from the way ting no one to his society except Alcibiades, in
in which they are mentioned by the ancient writers, whose reckless and variable disposition he probably
as well as from the few fragments of them which found pleasure in tracing and studying an image of
have come down to us, it is evident that they were the world he had abandoned; and at last he is