THEODORUS of Gadara, a rhetorician in the first century after Christ; tutor of Tiberius, first in Rome, afterwards in Rhodes, from which town he called himself a Rhodian, and where Tiberius during his exile diligently attended his instruction. He was the author of various grammatical and other works, but his fame chiefly rested on his abilities as a teacher, in which capacity he seems to have had great influence (Pauly). He was the author of that famous description of Tiberius which is given by Suetonius (_Tib._ 57), πηλὸς αἵματι πεφυραμένος, “A clod kneaded together with blood.”[1]
[Footnote 1: A remarkable parallel, if not actually an imitation, occurs in Goethe’s _Faust_, “Du Spottgeburt von Dreck und Feuer.”]
THEOPOMPUS, a native of Chios; born 380 B.C. He came to Athens while still a boy, and studied eloquence under Isokrates, who is said, in comparing him with another pupil, Ephorus, to have made use of the image which we find in Longinus, c. ii. “Theopompus,” he said, “needs the curb, Ephorus the spur” (Suidas, quoted by Jahn ad v.) He appeared with applause in various great cities as an advocate, but especially distinguished himself in the contest of eloquence instituted by Artemisia at the obsequies of her husband Mausolus, where he won the prize. He afterwards devoted himself to historical composition. His great work was a history of Greece, in which he takes up the thread of Thucydides’s narrative, and carries it on uninterruptedly in twelve books down to the battle of Knidus, seventeen years later. Here he broke off, and began a new work entitled _The Philippics_, in fifty-eight books. This work dealt with the history of Greece in the Macedonian period, but was padded out to a preposterous bulk by all kinds of digressions on mythological, historical, or social topics. Only a few fragments remain. He earned an ill name among ancient critics by the bitterness of his censures, his love of the marvellous, and the inordinate length of his digressions. His style is by some critics censured as feeble, and extolled by others as clear, nervous, and elevated (Lübker and Pauly).
TIMAEUS, a native of Tauromenium in Sicily; born about 352 B.C. Being driven out of Sicily by Agathokles, he lived a retired life for fifty years in Athens, where he composed his History. Subsequently he returned to Sicily, and died at the age of ninety-six in 256 B.C. His chief work was a _History of Sicily_ from the earliest times down to the 129th Olympiad. It numbered sixty-eight books, and consisted of two principal divisions, whose limits cannot now be ascertained. In a separate work he handled the campaigns of Pyrrhus, and also wrote _Olympionikae_, probably dealing with chronological matters. Timaeus has been severely criticised and harshly condemned by the ancients, especially by Polybius, who denies him every faculty required by the historical writer (xii. 3-15, 23-28). And though Cicero differs from this judgment, yet it may be regarded as certain that Timaeus was better qualified for the task of learned compilation than for historical research, and held no distinguished place among the historians of Greece. His works have perished, only a few fragments remaining (Lübker).