Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography [Hardcover]

A new evaluation of Timaeus of Tauromenium treating his fragments and Hellenistic historiography, in their proper context.This book offers a new examination of Timaeus of Tauromenium, a Sicilian historian and one of the first Greeks to devote attention to Rome. It presents methodological discussions of fragments, genre and speeches in their proper context, which will be useful for other areas of study in the ancient world.This book offers a new examination of Timaeus of Tauromenium, a Sicilian historian and one of the first Greeks to devote attention to Rome. It presents methodological discussions of fragments, genre and speeches in their proper context, which will be useful for other areas of study in the ancient world.Timaeus of Tauromenium (350260 BC) wrote the authoritative account of the Greeks in the Western Mediterranean. Like almost all the Hellenistic historians, his work survives only in fragments. Beyond an up-to-date treatment of this important author, this book shows that both the nature of the evidence and modern assumptions about historical writing in the Hellenistic period have skewed our treatment and judgement of lost historians. For Timaeus, much of our evidence is preserved in the polemical context of Polybius' Book 12. When we move outside that framework and examine the fragments of Timaeus in their proper context, we gain a greater appreciation for his method and his achievement, including his use of polemical invective and his composition of speeches. This examination of Timaeus also conveys a broader impression of the major lines of Hellenistic historiography.1. How to study a fragmentary historian; 2. Timaeus' life and works; 3. Timaeus' legacy: Rome and beyond; 4. The distorting lens: Polybius and Timaeus; 5. A stranger in a strange land? Timaeus in Athens; 6. Polemical invective and the Hellenistic historian's craft; 7. The missing link? Pythagoras and Pythagoreans in Timaeus; 8. 'Just like a schoolboy': Timaeus and his speeches; 9. GenerlSç