TIMOTHEUS, tl-mtYth-iis (Lat., from Gk. Tip,61kos,), OF MILErus. A Greek poet and mu sician, son of Thersander; lie lived about n.c. 450-357. Ile was first of all a citharodes, i.e. one who, while singing, played his own accompani ment on the cithara. The special form of lyric poetry used for these public performances was the Noinos. whose name Terpander was said to have established. Originally this was largely a musical performance of hexameters from the epic, but Thnotheus seems to have given definite form to novelties alreatly attempted, and greatly enlarged the possibilities of artistic display by introducing a free metrical structure, which offered full scope for elaborate musical com position and vocal execution. He further en larged his opportunities by increasing the number of strings on the cithara to eleven. His innovations met with strong opposition, and were especially distasteful to the Spartans, against whom lie defends himself in his 'Persians." His works have till recently been known only through the scantiest fragments and allusions, but in 1902 a papyrus manuscript of his limos, the "Persians," was discovered by the German Oriental Society in a Greek sarcophagus at Abu sir, near Memphis, in Egypt. About 110 lines of
considerable length are preserved, and 80 of these are practically complete. It is the oldest Greek manuscript yet found, and was copied but a few years after the death of the author, and the fact that it is the only specimen of this branch of the Greek lyric lends special value to the poem. The subject is the defeat of the Persians at Sala mis, and it seems to belong to the early years of the fourth century, when Athens was humbled and Sparta supreme, for in the vivid descrip tion of the battle there is no mention of Athens. The dialect, however, is the Attic of the poets. The style is highly wrought with many com pounds and metaphorical terms, often far fetched. Timotheus seems to have been less a poet than a musician, and with only his libretto it is sea rcely possible to estimate properly his real position in Greek literary apt. Consult: Wilainowitz-M611endorf, Tiniotheos, Die Perser (Leipzig, 1903), text, a Greek paraphrase, and explanatory essay; Der Timothros l'apm,rus (ib., 1903). photographic facsimile; T. IL in Revue des etudes greeques, vol. xvi. (Paris, 1903), an essay and translation into French.