Timotheus of Miletus ( grc, Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 446 – 357 BC) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

musician and dithyrambic

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

ns and Athenians (E. Curtius, ''Hist of Greece'', bk. v. ch. 2). He composed musical works of a mythological and historical character. He spent some years in the court of

Archelaus I of Macedon Archelaus I (; grc-gre, Ἀρχέλαος ) was a king of the kingdom of Macedonia from 413 to 399 BC. He was a capable and beneficent ruler, known for the sweeping changes he made in state administration, the military, and commerce. By the t ...

. Fragments of Timotheus' poetry survive, published in Denys Page, ''Poetae Melici Graeci''. A papyrus-fragment of his ''Persians'' (one of the oldest Greek papyri in existence), discovered at Abusir has been edited by U. von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff (1903), with discussion of the nome, meter, the number of strings of the lyre, date of the poet and fragment.

Conflation

In post-Classical literature Timotheus of Miletus is sometimes confused with another famous musician, the

aulete An ''aulos'' ( grc, αὐλός, plural , ''auloi'') or ''tibia'' (Latin) was an Music of ancient Greece, ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in Ancient Greek art, art and also attested by classical archaeology, archaeology. Though ''a ...

Timotheus Timotheus is a masculine male name. It is a latinized version of the Greek name (Timόtheos) mmeaning "one who honours God", from τιμή "honour" and θεός "god"., . The English version '' Timothy'' (and its variations) is a common name in ...

in the court of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

.Claude V. Palisca, Nancy Kovaleff Baker, Barbara Russano Hanning, ''Musical humanism and its legacy: essays in honor of Claude V. Palisca'', Pendragon Press, 1992, p.37. See also David A. Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. 5, Harvard University Press (Loeb) 1993; J. H. Hordern, The Fragments of Timotheus of Miletus, Oxford University Press, 2002. Rabelais speaks of the musician in Chapter 23 of ''

Gargantua ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...

'' "Ponocrates also made him forget everything he learned with his former preceptors, as Timotheus did with those of his disciples who were trained by other musicians." Rabelais implies that Timotheus believed other musicians to have merely inculcated bad habits.

Notes

External links

English translation
of the ''Persians'' by J. M. Edmonds
P. 9875
the papyrus fragments digitized Ancient Milesians Dithyrambic poets Ancient Greek musicians Ancient Greeks from the Achaemenid Empire Courtiers of Archelaus I of Macedon Metics in Classical Athens 5th-century BC Greek people 4th-century BC Greek people 4th-century BC poets 440s BC births 357 BC deaths {{Greece-musician-stub