1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Timotheus (musician)

TIMOTHEUS, of Miletus (c. 446–357 B.C.), Greek musician and dithyrambic poet. He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the Spartans and Athenians (E. Curtius, Hist, of Greece, bk. v. ch. 2). He composed musical works of a mythological and historical character.

Fragments in T. Bergk, Poetae lyrici graeci. A papyrus-fragment of his Persians (the oldest papyrus in existence), discovered at Abusir has been edited by U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff (1903), with discussion of the nome, metre, the number of strings of the lyre, date of the poet and fragment. See V. Strazzulla, I. Persiani di Eschilo ed il nomo di Timoteo (1904); S. Sudhaus in Rhein. Mus., lviii. (1903), p. 481 ; and T. Reinach and M. Croiset in Revue des études grecques, xvi. (1903), pp. 62, 323.