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Article

Theocritus  

Alan H. Griffiths

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Theocritus, poet from *Syracuse, early 3rd century bce (working at the *Alexandrian court in the 270s); creator of the bucolic genre, but a writer who drew inspiration from many earlier literary forms, cleverly blending them into a new amalgam which nevertheless displays constant invention and seeks variety rather than homogeneity. Thirty poems and a few fragments, together with twenty-four epigrams, are ascribed to him, several (e.g. 19, 20, 21, 23) clearly spurious and others (e.g. 25, 26) of doubtful authenticity. A scholar called Artemidorus boasts in an epigram transmitted along with the ancient scholia (which are very full and learned) that he has rounded up “the Pastoral Muses” so that “scattered once, all are now a single fold and flock”; his edition no doubt included a good deal of anonymous material in the most distinctive of the various Theocritean styles (rural sketches written in the Doric dialect; see greek language, §4) alongside the master's work, and authorship is sometimes hard to determine.

Article

Theodectes, tragic poet  

Andrew Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Theodectes, a tragic poet, orator, writer on rhetoric, and composer of *riddles in verse, was born at *Phaselis in Lycia but probably lived mainly at Athens. The *Suda and other sources claim that he was a pupil of *Plato(1), *Isocrates, and *Aristotle (but in fact he was clearly older than Aristotle and influenced him), produced 50 plays at thirteen competitions, and won eight victories. An inscription (which calls him ‘Theodektas’, perhaps more correctly) attests seven victories at the Great *Dionysia, the first shortly after 372 bce. Titles included Aias, Alcmaeon, Helen, Lynceus (Arist., Poet.11, commends its peripeteia, plot-reversal), Mausolus (concerning *Mausolus, the satrap of Caria, or a mythical ancestor of his), Oedipus, Orestes, Philoctetes, and Tydeus. The fragments consist mainly of elegantly expressed commonplaces in the Euripidean manner (see euripides).As an orator he competed with *Theopompus(3), Naucrates of Erythrae, and perhaps Isocrates (or another Isocrates, of Apollonia) at the dedication of the *Mausoleum, when Mausolus' widow *Artemisia(2) had offered a prize for the best encomium of her husband.

Article

Theodoridas , of Syracuse, 2nd half of 3rd cent. BCE  

Richard Hunter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Theodoridas of *Syracuse (second half of 3rd century bce), a versatile poet of whom *dithyrambic and hexameter fragments survive, as well as nineteen largely funerary and dedicatory *epigrams. Metrically noteworthy are vi Gow–Page ("archilochians") and xv Gow–Page on Mnasalces (iambic trimeter followed by ithyphallic); xiv Gow–Page concerns *Euphorion (2).

Article

Theodorus (3), of Gadara, rhetor  

Donald Russell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Theodorus (3), of Gadara, a celebrated rhetor, was a teacher of the future emperor *Tiberius (Suet.Tib. 57), and later settled in *Rhodes. He is said to have allowed more freedom in the arrangement and composition of speeches than did *Apollodorus (5) of Pergamum, and evidently had an interest in stylistic faults and virtues (‘Longinus’ 3. 5). He is frequently cited by *Quintilian.

Article

Theodotus, epic poet, c. 2nd cent. BCE  

Thomas Kuhn-Treichel

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 May 2021
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Jewish Studies
Author of an epic poem about the biblical patriarch Jacob, with special focus on the rape of his daughter Dinah and the conquest of Shechem, as narrated in Genesis 34. There is no external evidence about his life. Some scholars have tried to identify correspondences between his description of Shechem and the archaeological remains, suggesting a date between the late 3rd and the first half of the 2nd century bce;1 others, highlighting possible allusions to historical events, have argued for the last third of the 2nd century bce.2 Jakob Freudenthal has put forward the influential thesis that Theodotus was a Samaritan, as the town of Shechem, located below the Samaritans’ cultic centre on Mount Gerizim, plays a pivotal role in his poem and is in one place called ἱερὸν ἄστυ (“holy city,” Suppl. Hell. 757.7).3 Meanwhile scholars tend to take him for a Jew, arguing that ἱερὸν ἄστυ reflects a Homeric topos rather than a particular affinity to the place.

Article

Theognetus  

Geoffrey Arnott

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Theognetus, one of the later poets of New Comedy (see comedy (greek), new). Fr. 1 ridicules excessive preoccupation with philosophy, fr. 2 describes the juggler Pantaleon.

Article

Theognis (2), tragic poet  

Andrew Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Theognis (2), a tragic poet derided by *Aristophanes(1) (Ach. 11–12, 139–40; Thesm. 170) for his ‘coldness’—i.e. dullness, lack of talent. A scholiast identifies him with the Theognis who was one of the *Thirty Tyrants.

Article

Theognis (1), elegiac poet from Megara  

Andrew Ford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
The Theognidea is a collection of archaic Greek elegy amounting to nearly 1400 verses; its content is mainly gnomological advice on issues of politics and ethics, with the symposium as the ostensible occasion for its presentation. A passage near the opening of the work announces that these are the verses of Theognis of Megara, who is widely famed for his songs; and yet some of the verses are attested as having been composed by other Greek elegiac poets and the corpus as a whole has clearly suffered from repeated editing and excerpting. If neither the poetry nor the historical traditions about Theognis yield much reliable information about him, the Theognidea remains a valuable anthology of social and political thought among late archaic and early classical Greek elites.Theognis (1) is the nominal author of the Theognidea, a collection of archaic sympotic elegy amounting to nearly 1400 verses. Evidence for Theognis’s life is meagre: the entry on him in the .

Article

Theon (1), of Alexandria (1), lexicographer, 1st cent. BCE  

Nigel Wilson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Theon (1) of *Alexandria (1) (1st cent. bce), son of *Artemidorus (1) of Tarsus, and head of the school at Alexandria. He wrote on *Homer and other classical authors, and compiled a lexicon of words used in Comedy and Tragedy. His main claim to fame, however, lies in his commentaries on the chief Alexandrian poets.

Article

Theon (3), Aelius, of Alexandria, rhetor  

Donald Russell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Aelius Theon (3) of Alexandria, a rhetor of the 1st cent. ce, said to have written works on *Xenophon (1), *Isocrates, and *Demosthenes (2), as well as an Art of Rhetoric (Τέχνη), a treatise on figures, and a set of *progymnasmata. This last is extant (though in a somewhat mangled form), and is the earliest specimen of the genre we possess.

Article

Theophilus (1), Athenian comic poet  

Kenneth Dover

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

He won a victory in 329 bce. Eight titles and twelve citations survive (frs. 6 and 12 are gnomic).

Article

Theopompus (2), Athenian comic poet  

Kenneth Dover

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Theopompus (2) Athenian comic poet, was active from c.410 bce (probably not earlier) to c.370. We have twenty titles (including Odysseus, Penelope, and Sirens) and over 100 citations (many of them only glosses).

Article

Thespis  

Richard Seaford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Thespis was believed in antiquity to have invented tragedy. *Horace (Ars P. 275–7) has him taking his plays around on wagons, with the players' faces smeared with wine-lees. The *Suda says that he invented the mask. And in *Plutarch he consorts with *Solon (Solon 29). But none of these details is reliable. Nor are any of the few surviving fragments and titles likely to be authentic. And there were other nominations for the inventor of tragedy (*Epigenes(1) of Sicyon, *Arion (2) of Methymna). The Parian Marble (43) (see marmor parium) dates his first activity to somewhere between 538 and 528 bce. But the statement in the Suda, on which is based the modern view that he first produced tragedy at the Dionysia in one of the years 535–533, is in fact unreliable (Connor). Worthy of respect, however, is the remark attributed to Aristotle that Thespis added prologue and speech to what had been a choral performance (Themistios 26. 316d). See tragedy, greek, §.

Article

Thucydides (2), Athenian historian, 2nd half of 5th cent. BCE  

Henry Theodore Wade-Gery, John Dewar Denniston, and Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Thucydides (2), author of the (incomplete) History of the War (*Peloponnesian War) between Athens and Sparta, 431–404 bce, in eight books.He was born probably between 460 and 455 bce: he was general (see stratēgoi) in 424 (4. 104) and must then have been at least 30 years old; while his claim in 5. 26. 5 that he was of years of discretion from beginning to end of the war perhaps suggests that he was not much more than grown up in 431. He probably died about 400. He shows no knowledge of 4th-cent. events. The revival of Athenian sea power under *Conon(1) and *Thrasybulus, from 394 on, made the decision of Aegospotami (405: see athens, History) less decisive than it seemed to Thucydides (compare e.g. 5. 26. 1 with Xen. Hell. 5. 1. 35). Of the three writers who undertook to complete his History, only .

Article

thymos  

Douglas Cairns

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 March 2019
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
Thymos (or thumos), cognate with Indo-European words meaning “smoke,” is one of a number of terms in Greek which associate psychological activity with air and breath. In the Homeric poems, thymos is one of a family of terms associated with internal psychological process of thought, emotion, volition, and motivation. Though the range of the term’s applications in Homer is wide, that in itself gives us a sense of the unity of cognitive, affective, and desiderative processes in Homeric psychology. No post-Homeric author can rival that range, but something of the richness of the Homeric conception of thymos as an interrelated set of motivations re-emerges in Plato’s conception of the tripartite soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus. Plato’s thymos represents a pared-down model of human agency typified by one central desire or aim in life but also exhibiting whatever further capacities of persons are necessary to enable it to pursue that aim in interaction with the other elements of the personality. As in Homer, the metaphorical agency of Plato’s thymos does not detract from the notion of the individual as the real centre of agency.

Article

Timachidas, of Rhodian Lindus, late 2nd–early 1st cent. BCE  

Richard Hunter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Timachidas of Rhodian Lindus composed the surviving record of dedications in the temple of *Athena, the so-called Lindian Chronicle (FGrH532). He also wrote on classical authors (including *Aristophanes(1), *Euripides, and *Menander(1)), compiled an influential Glossai (see gloss, glosses), and composed an *epicDeipnon (Dinner) in at least eleven books (Ath.

Article

Timocles, Middle Comedy poet  

Kenneth Dover

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Timocles Middle Comedy poet, (see comedy (greek), middle) late in the period but much given to personal satire in the manner of earlier comedy; almost half the extant citations refer to individuals (e.g. fr. 12, on *Demosthenes(2), who ‘has never yet uttered an antithesis’). He won first prize once at the Lenaea between 330 and 320 (IG 22.

Article

Timocreon, lyric and elegiac poet, late 6th/early 5th cent. BCE  

C. Carey

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Timocreon (late 6th/early 5th cent. BCE), lyric and elegiac poet, of *Ialysus on *Rhodes. He was sufficiently famous for *Aristophanes (1) to parody (Ach. 533 f.; Vesp. 1060 f.), but was remembered later chiefly for his feud with *Themistocles. Timocreon had medized (fr. 729; see medism), and may have joined the court of the king of *Persia (Ath. 10. 415 f.). He attacks Themistocles for breaking his agreement to restore him to Rhodes, and mocks him for his failure to obtain the prize for excellence after *Plataea (fr. 727). The attacks continued after Themistocles' exile (fr. 729). His feud with *Simonides was equally famous (Suda, Anth. Pal. 13. 30–1; Ath. 10. 415 f.). The fragments show vigour, range of register, and a gift for *parody (Anth. Pal. 13. 31, fr. 727, which uses the metres of encomiastic poetry for abuse). He was also renowned as a pentathlete (see pentathlon) and a glutton (Ath.

Article

Timon (1), of Athens, semilegendary misanthrope  

Victor Ehrenberg

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Timon of Athens, the famous misanthrope, a semi-legendary character. He seems to have lived in the time of *Pericles(1). *Aristophanes(1) is the first to allude to him. He became known to Shakespeare through *Plutarch (Ant.70) and Lucian's dialogue.

Article

Timostratus  

Geoffrey Arnott

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Timostratus, one of the latest comic poets in Athens whose fragments survive. A man of good Athenian family, he came fifth with Λυτ[ρούμενος] (‘Man Ransoming’ or ‘Being Ransomed’) in 188 bce, and third with Φιλοίκειος (‘Loving the Family’) in 183 (IG 22. 2323. 141, 1557 III b 3 col. 3a. 1, 3b. 9 Mette). His son Ariston, grandson Poses, and great-grandson Ariston seem also to have been comic poets.