Timaios of Lokris, pseudo (100 BCE – 100 CE)
The Timaios of P’s eponymous dialogue has been credited with an apocryphal tract
in Doric prose (On the Nature of the Soul and of the World), an epitome of the Platonic dialogue
which, for the most part, merely reiterates the Plato’s content but also was deeply influenced
by middle-Platonic doctrines. A two-principle theory, which sees mind (nous) and necessity
(ananke ̄) as causes of the universe, is combined with a three-principles doctrine which repro-
duces Aristotelian hylomorphism: the imposition of form on passive (“female”) matter,
thereby producing perceptible things. The universe, which is one, perfect, spherical and
endowed with soul, was molded by the Demiurge, who reduced it to order by imprinting
a definite form onto an undefined matter. By attuning the world soul according to harmonic
ratios, the author, unlike in Plato’s Timaios (35b–36d), starts from the number 384 to avoid
fractions. The author explains the origin of the elements by a reduction to geometric figures
and, in addressing physiological questions, also follows the Platonic model.
Ed.: W. Marg, Timaeus Locrus, De natura mundi et animae (1972); T.H. Tobin, Timaios of Locri: On the nature
of the World and the Soul (1985).
M. Baltes, Timaios Lokros: Über die Natur des Kosmos und der Seele (1972); K.S. Guthrie, The Pythagorean
Sourcebook and Library (1987) 287–296.
Bruno Centrone
Timaios of Tauromenion (ca 335 – 260 BCE)
Author of three works: a treatise on Olympic victors, perhaps based on his study of inscrip-
tions in Olympia (E had also composed an Olumpionika); a History of events in
Italy, Sicily and Libya; a work about P E ̄. Timaios’ father, Androma-
khos, founded Tauromenion as a city of refuge for the people of Naxos when Dionusios I,
the tyrant of Surakousai, destroyed their city (403 BCE). Andromakhos continued as their
dynast for many years and welcomed the expedition of Timoleo ̄n of Corinth in 345 BCE.
Timaios moved to Athens as a very young man (339– 329 BCE) and remained there for 50
years because ca 315 the Sicilian tyrant Agathokle ̄s officially banished him. Sometime
between 289– 279 BCE, during the reign of H II, Timaios returned to Sicily (prob-
ably to Surakousai), where he died at the age of 96. While at Athens, Timaios studied
rhetoric under Philiskos of Mile ̄tos, a pupil of Isokrate ̄s, and wrote his historical works. His
History, probably in 38 books, introduced the system of chronology by Olympiads and
devoted special attention to colonies, foundations and peoples. Timaios considered geog-
raphy an integral part of history, accepted the conventional division of the oikoumene ̄
into three parts (Asia, Libya and Europe), and was particularly interested in islands. He
approved of the work of P M but did not have the mathematical
training to appreciate some themes in geographic theory. Many of Timaios’ preserved
geographical notices lack a context and are too brief to enable a proper evaluation.
According to the Souda (T-600) Timaios traveled very little and made only one expedition
from Corinth to Surakousai, but P, starting his own work chronologically where
Timaios ended (264 BCE), says that Timaios made a special journey to the Lokrians of
Greece to get information. Polubios’ Histories include many attacks and criticisms of
Timaios’ supposedly childish and illogical approach.
Ed.: FGrHist 566.
T.S. Brown, Timaeus of Tauromenium (1958); L. Pearson, The Greek Historians of the West: Timaeus and his
TIMAIOS OF TAUROMENION