city. After the defeat of Gregorius, governor of Africa, by the Arabs in 647, Thamugas passes from history. After centuries of neglect James Bruce, the African traveller, visited the spot (1765), made careful drawings of the monuments and deciphered some of the inscriptions. Bruce was followed, more than a century later (1875), by Sir R. Lambert Playfair, British consul-general at Algiers, and soon afterwards (1875–1876) Professor Masqueray published a report on the state of the ruins. Since 1881 Thamugas has been systematically explored, and the ruins excavated under the direction of the Service des monuments historiques. Among the objects discovered are a series of standard measures—five cavities hollowed out of a stone slab.
Seventeen miles west of Timgad, on the site of the Roman city Lambaesis, is Lambessa (q.v.).
See G. Boeswillwald, R. Cagnat and A. Ballu, Timgad, une cité africaine sous l’empire romain; and A. Ballu, Guide illustré de Timgad (Paris, 1903).
TIMOCREON, of Ialysus in Rhodes, Greek lyric poet, flourished about 480 B.C. During the Persian wars he had been banished on suspicion of “medism.” Themistocles had promised to procure his recall, but was unable to resist the bribes of Timocreon's adversaries and allowed him to remain in exile. Timocreon thereupon attacked him most bitterly (see Plutarch, Themistocles, 21); and Simonides, the friend of Themistocles, retorted in an epigram (Anth. Pal. vii. 348). Timocreon was also known as a composer of scolia (drinking-songs) and, according to Suidas, wrote plays in the style of the old comedy. His gluttony and drunkenness were notorious, and he was an athlete of great prowess.
TIMOLEON (c. 411–337 B.C.), of Corinth, Greek statesman and general. As the champion of Greece against Carthage he is closely connected with the history of Sicily, especially Syracuse (q.v.). When his brother Timophanes, whose life he had saved in battle, took possession of the acropolis of Corinth and made himself master of the city, Timoleon, after an ineffectual protest, tacitly acquiesced while the friends who accompanied him put Timophanes to death. Public opinion approved his conduct as patriotic; but the curses of his mother and the indignation of some of his kinsfolk drove him into retirement for twenty years. In 344 envoys came from Syracuse to Corinth, to appeal to the mother-city for relief from the intestine feuds from which the Syracusans and all the Greeks of Sicily were suffering. Carthage too, their old and bitter foe, was intriguing with the local despots. Corinth could not refuse help, though her chief citizens declined the responsibility of attempting to establish a settled government in the factious and turbulent Syracuse. Timoleon, being named by an unknown voice in the popular assembly, was chosen by a unanimous vote to undertake the mission, and set sail for Sicily with a few of the leading citizens of Corinth and a small troop of Greek mercenaries. He eluded a Carthaginian squadron and landed at Tauromenium (Taormina), where he met with a friendly reception. At this time Hicetas, tyrant of Leontini, was master of Syracuse, with the
exception of the island of Ortygia, which was occupied by Dionysius, still nominally tyrant. Hicetas was defeated at Adranum, an inland town, and driven back to Syracuse. In 343 Dionysius surrendered Ortygia on condition of being granted a safe conduct to Corinth. Hicetas now received help from Carthage (60,000 men), but ill-success roused mutual suspicion; the Carthaginians abandoned Hicetas, who was besieged in
Leontini, and compelled to surrender. Timoleon was thus master of Syracuse. He at once began the work of restoration, bringing new settlers from the mother-city and from Greece generally, and establishing a popular government on the basis of the democratic laws of Diocles. The citadel was razed to the ground, and a court of justice erected on its site. The amphipolos, or priest of Olympian Zeus, who was annually chosen by lot out of three clans, was invested with the chief magistracy. The impress of Timoleon's reforms seems to have lasted to the days of Augustus. Hicetas again induced Carthage to send
(340–339) a great army (70,000), which landed at Lilybaeum (Marsala). With a miscellaneous levy of about 12,000 men, most of them mercenaries, Timoleon marched westwards across the island into the neighbourhood of Selinus and won a great and decisive victory on the Crimissus. The general himself led his infantry, and the enemy's discomfiture was completed by a blinding storm of rain and hail. This victory gave the Greeks of Sicily many years of peace and safety from Carthage. Carthage made, however, one more effort and despatched some
mercenaries to prolong the conflict between Timoleon and the tyrants. But it ended (338) in the defeat of Hicetas, who was taken prisoner and put to death; by a treaty the dominion of Carthage in Sicily was confined to the west of the Halycus (Platani). Timoleon then retired into private life without assuming any title or office, though he remained practically supreme, not only at Syracuse, but throughout the island. Notwithstanding the many elements of discord Sicily seems to have been during Timoleon's lifetime tranquil and contented. He became blind some time before his death, but persisted in attending the assembly and giving his opinion, which was usually accepted as a unanimous vote. He was buried at the cost of the citizens of Syracuse, who erected a monument to his memory in their market-place, afterwards surrounded with porticoes, and a gymnasium called Timoleonteum.
Lives by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos; see also Diod. Sic. xvi. 65–90; monograph by J. F. Arnoldt (1850), which contains an exhaustive examination of the authorities; also Sicily: History; and Syracuse, with works quoted.
TIMOMACHUS, a Greek painter of the 1st century B.C. He was noted especially for two pictures, one of which represented Ajax during his madness, the other Medea meditating the slaying of her children. Both of these works were remarkable for their power of expression, especially in the face, and so belong to the latest phase of Greek art. Of the Medea we may form some notion from paintings found at Pompeii, representing that heroine standing with a sheathed sword in her hand, and watching the children at play (Helbig, Wandgemälde Campaniens, Nos. 1262–1265).
TIMON, of Athens, the noted misanthrope, celebrated in Shakespeare's play, lived during the Peloponnesian War. He is more than once alluded to by Aristophanes and other comedians. Plutarch introduces a short account of his life in his biography of Mark Antony (ch. 70), who built a retreat called Timonium (Strabo xvii. 794) at Alexandria. Timon also gave his name to one of Lucian’s dialogues. Shakespeare probably derived his knowledge of Timon mainly from Plutarch; but the Timon of Shakespeare so resembles the Timon of Lucian that Shakespeare (or whoever wrote the first sketch of the play) may have had access to the dialogue.
TIMON (c. 320–230), of Phlius, Greek sceptic philosopher and satirical poet, a pupil of Stilpo the Megarian and Pyrrho of Elis. Having made a fortune by teaching and lecturing in Chalcedon he spent the rest of his life chiefly at Athens, where he died. His writings (Diogenes Laertius, ix. ch. 12) were numerous both in prose and in verse: besides the Σίλλοι, he is said to have written epic poems, tragedies, comedies and satyric dramas. But he is best known as the author of the Σίλλοι, three books of sarcastic hexameter verses, written against the Greek philosophers.
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TIMOR, an island of the Malay Archipelago, the easternmost and largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands, stretching S.W. and N.E.
