continuator, beginning his narrative with the Romans’ first crossing of the sea
from Italy (264 b.c.e.), following straight on from where Timaeus stopped (1.5.1).
A lot of what we know about Timaeus comes from Polybius’s sustained polemic in
book 12, in which he denounces Timaeus’s parochial attempts to make Sicily look
as important as Greece “proper.” One of Polybius’s most revealing passages
attacks Timaeus’s synchronistic comparison between Alexander the Great and the
Sicilian hero Timoleon; here his acute understanding of Timaeus’s comparative
West/East mentality comes through very clearly (12.23.7):^40
ajllav moi dokei' peisqh'nai Tivmaio" wJ", a]n Timolevwn, pefilodoxhkw;" ejn aujth'/
Sikeliva/, kaqavper ejn ojxubavfw/, suvgkrito" fanh'/ toi'" ejpifanestavtoi" tw'n
hJrwvwn, ka]n aujto;" uJpe;r ÆItaliva" movnon kai; Sikeliva" pragmateuovmeno"
eijkovtw" parabolh'" ajxiwqh'nai toi'" uJpe;r th'" oijkoumevnh" kai; tw'n kaqovlou
pravxewn pepoihmevnoi" ta;" suntavxei".
But I think Timaeus was convinced that if Timoleon, who had sought fame
just in Sicily, as if in a saucer, looked comparable to the most spectacular of
heroes, then he himself, who dealt only with Italy and Sicily, could reasonably
be thought worthy of comparison with those who composed comprehensive
histories of the inhabited world and of deeds on a universal scale.Another highly revealing passage contains Polybius’s denunciation of how
Timaeus treated the negotiations between Gelon and the Greeks before the inva-
sion of Xerxes.^41 Here we return to the crucial events of 480 b.c.e.treated by
Herodotus in book 7, with the dispute over who will be the supreme commander
against the Persians. After praising the Greek coalition’s stance on the issue of
supreme command, Polybius once again ridicules the misuse of the comparative
mode by Timaeus, once again explicitly drawing attention to the synkrisisform
(12.26b.4 – c.1):^42
ajllÆ o{mw" Tivmaio" eij" e{kasta tw'n proeirhmevnwn tosouvtou" ejkteivnei
lovgou" kai; toiauvthn poiei'tai spoudh;n peri; tou' th;n me;n Sikelivan
megalomerestevran poih'sai th'" sumpavsh" ÊJEllavdo", ta;" dÆ ejn aujth'/
pravxei" ejpifanestevra" kai; kallivou" tw'n kata; th;n a[llhn oijkoumevnhn,
tw'n dÆ ajndrw'n tw'n me;n sofiva/ dienhnocovtwn sofwtavtou" tou;" ejn Sikeliva/,
tw'n de; pragmatikw'n hJgemonikwtavtou" kai; qeiotavtou" tou;" ejk Surakousw'n,
w{ste mh; katalipei'n uJperbolh;n toi'" meirakivoi" toi'" ejn tai'" diatribai'"- Synchronizing Times II: West and East