HKB
[Sidenote: Timaeus’s over-estimate of Timoleon.]
+23.+ Timaeus attacks Ephorus with great severity, though he is himself liable to two grave charges—bitterness in attacking others for faults of which he is himself guilty, and complete demoralisation, shown by the opinions which he expresses in his memoirs, and which he endeavours to implant in the minds of his readers. If we are to lay it down that Callisthenes deserved his death, what ought to happen to Timaeus? Surely there is much more reason for Providence to be wroth with him than with Callisthenes. The latter wished to deify Alexander; but Timaeus exalts Timoleon above the most venerable gods. The hero of Callisthenes, again, was a man by universal consent of a superhuman elevation of spirit; while Timoleon, far from having accomplished any action of first-rate importance, never even undertook one. The one expedition which he achieved in the course of his life took him no farther than from Corinth to Syracuse; and how paltry is such a distance when compared with the extent of the world! I presume that Timaeus believed that if Timoleon, by gaining glory in such a mere saucer of a place as Sicily, should be thought comparable to the most illustrious heroes, he too himself, as the historian of only Italy and Sicily, might properly be considered on a par with the writers of universal history. This will be sufficient defence of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Callisthenes, Ephorus, and Demochares against the attacks of Timaeus: and it is addressed to those who believe that this historian is impartial and truthful....
[Sidenote: The incapacity of Timaeus for forming a judgment.]
+24.+ We may fairly judge Timaeus on the principles which he has himself laid down. According to him, “poets and historians betray their own tastes by the incidents which they repeatedly record in their writings. Thus the poet[37] by his fondness for banqueting scenes shows that he is a glutton; and in the same way Aristotle, by frequently describing rich food in his writings, betrays his love of dainty living and his greediness.” On the same principle he judges Dionysius the tyrant because he “was always very particular in the ornamentation of his dining-couches, and had hangings of exquisite make and variegated colours.” If we apply this principle to Timaeus, we shall have abundant reason to think badly of him. In attacking others he shows great acuteness and boldness; when he comes to independent narrative he is full of dreams, miracles, incredible myths,—in a word, of miserable superstition and old wives’ tales. The truth is that Timaeus is a proof of the fact, that at times, and in the case of many men, want of skill and want of judgment so completely destroy the value of their evidence, that though present at and eye-witnesses of the facts which they record, they might just as well have been absent or had no eyes....
[Sidenote: The brazen bull of Phalaris.]
+25.+ The story of the brazen bull is this. It was made by Phalaris at Agrigentum; and he used to force men to get into it, and then by way of punishment light a fire underneath. The metal becoming thus red hot, the man inside was roasted and scorched to death; and when he screamed in his agony, the sound from the machine was very like the bellowing of a bull. When the Carthaginians conquered Sicily this bull was removed from Agrigentum to Carthage. The trap door between the shoulders, through which the victims used to be let down, still remains; and no other reason for the construction of such a bull in Carthage can be discovered at all: yet Timaeus has undertaken to upset the common story, and to refute the declarations of poets and historians, by alleging that the bull at Carthage did not come from Agrigentum, and that no such figure ever existed there; and he has composed a lengthy treatise to prove this....
GENERAL REMARKS ON TIMAEUS AS AN HISTORIAN