Timo ̄n declines to posit anything about the real nature of things, while accepting their
appearances for practical purposes. More specifically scientific interests are suggested for
Against the Physicists. Timo ̄n is reported as stressing the importance of the question whether
anything should be assumed by hypothesis – a notion originally employed in geometry, but
later without restriction as to subject-matter; it is a fair guess that Timo ̄n’s answer to the
question was negative. Also probably from the same work is the claim that no process
divisible into temporal parts can take place in an indivisible time; the point of this remark,
in the absence of context, is unclear.
Long and Sedley (1987) §§ 1 – 3; SEP “Timon of Phlius,” Richard Bett.
Richard Bett
Timosthene ̄s of Rhodes (270 – 240 BCE)
Admiral of Ptolemy Philadelphos, sailed west to the Tyrrhenian Sea and east to the
lower Red Sea. He wrote On Harbors, a periplous covering Asia, Europe, and Libya,
used extensively by E (see S 2.1.40), as well as a Summary of Distances,
and – according to Strabo ̄n 9.3.10 – the song for the Pythian games. His wind-rose had
12 parts (Strabo ̄n 1.2.21 and A); 40 or so other fragments include citations by
Strabo ̄n (3.1.7, 13.2.5, 17.3.6), P (5.47, 6.15, 6.163, 6.183, 6.198), and P, Geog.
1.15.
NP 12/1.595 (#2), H.A. Gärtner.
PTK
Timotheos (250 BCE – 100 CE)
Wrote a commentary on A (FGrHist 1026 T19), entirely lost.
(*)
PTK
Timotheos of Gaza (ca 490 – 510 CE)
Born ca 460, enigmatic grammarian who supposedly had “written in epic meter a book on
quadrupeds, and Indian, Arabian, Egyptian and Libyan animals... and four books on
exotic birds and on reptiles” (Souda T-621). Considering the reliquiae (a Byzantine epitome of
56 + 10 monographic chapters, and an anthology of 32 fragments preserved in a zoological
Sylloge attributed to Constantine VII Pophurogenne ̄tos; see A B),
he was a Christian who, in addition to a political memorandum (on the
chrysargyron-tax), composed a zoological compilation in mannered and rhythmical prose.
Wellmann’s argument failed to prove that Timotheos followed a lost book On Animals writ-
ten by the apologist Tatian, but the Syro-Egyptian origin of the book is clear from the text
itself. The zoological material was probably geographically dispatched in at least four books,
and the work was highly esteemed in Byzantine times, mainly due to originality and stylistic
refinement. Timotheos was considered a major zoological writer, listed with A,
O and L (Tzetze ̄s, Chiliades, 4.166). A significant proportion of the animals
mentioned are exotic (tiger, bison, giraffe, hyena), but not restricted to land (griffin, seal,
.. .). Timotheos possibly treated all macrofauna (including fishes). There are many parallels
with Aelianus (whom he surely used), but Timotheos is often richer and more complex. The
TIMOSTHENE ̄S OF RHODES