Predecessors (1987); R. Vattuone, “Timeo di Tauromenio,” in R. Vattuone, ed., Storici greci d’Occidente
(2002) 177–232.
Daniela DueckTimaris (325 – 90 BCE)
Allegedly a queen, to whom P 37.178, following M S, attributes
a poem devoted to Venus and referring to panero ̄s, presumably a type of amethyst, thought
to foster fertility. Susemihl considers her historicity questionable, and the name fictitious,
since Me ̄trodo ̄ros makes no reference to the stone or Timaris.
GGLA 1 (1891) 864–865; RE 6A.1 (1936) 1239, E. Diehl; SH 774.
Eugenio Amato
Timaristos (325 BCE? – 79 CE)
Cited among the sources of P’s books: 1.ind.21 (on the nature of flowers and garlands);
1.ind.22 (on the importance of herbs); 1.ind.23 (on medicines deriving from cultivated
plants); 1.ind.24 (on medicines deriving from wild plants); 1.ind.25 (on the nature of spon-
taneous plants); 1.ind.26 (on other medicines divided into genera); 1.ind.27 (on other kinds
of herbs and on medicines deriving from them). Pliny (21.180), treating a plant named
halicacabus, says that it was celebrated by Timaristos in a poem.
Fabricius (1726) 438.
Claudio Meliadò
T ⇒ S
T ⇒ (1) I; (2) M
T, I. ⇒ F V
Timokharis (300 – 265 BCE)
Astronomer, active in Alexandria, cited by P for the undated measurement of the
declinations of 12 fixed stars (Alm. 7.3), for observing some undated lunar eclipses (one datable
to 284 Mar 17), as well as the Moon’s occultation of four fixed stars during the period from
295 to 283 (Alm. 7.3), and its overtaking η Virginis in 272 (Alm. 10.4). The first set of measure-
ments may have been part of the same project as those measurements ascribed by Ptolemy to
A, a project with the goal of describing the heavens scientifically (in prose: cf.
P, De Pyth. 18) and, perhaps, constructing a precisely marked celestial globe. What-
ever their purpose, they were apparently used by H to discover the fact of preces-
sion (cf. Alm. 7.1). Likewise unknown is why Timokharis observed lunar eclipses, although they
were used, according to Ptolemy, by Hipparkhos to quantify the rate of precession (Alm. 7.3).
The observations of the lunar occultation of four fixed stars are the earliest known dated (as
opposed to datable) observations by a Greek. It is difficult to say what the purpose of these
observations was. Though there are some parallels between these observations and those
recorded in the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries, they do not help identify the purpose. Perhaps
Timokharis was investigating the length of the sidereal month (the period of the Moon’s
TIMARIS