The Sources of Plutarch's Timoleon

H. D. Westlake

doi:10.1017/S0009838800017821

The Sources of Plutarch's Timoleon

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

H. D. Westlake

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H. D. Westlake: Affiliation:
King's College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

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Plutarch's Timoleon has received little attention from scholars who in recent years have studied the sources of his Lives and sought to determine the methods which he followed in their composition. The reasons for this neglect are obvious: the Timoleon is a simple Life, contains few citations, and is universally and justifiably believed to be founded, together with the Timoleon of Cornelius Nepos, upon the tradition established by Timaeus. Scholars of the nineteenth century agreed in further concluding that both authors derived their material directly and almost exclusively from Timaeus. This conclusion does not appear to have been challenged in spite of the well-known contention of Eduard Meyer, which has won considerable approval, that neither biographer was accustomed to use primary historical authorities, each relying mainly upon biographies of the Hellenistic period which have not survived. The validity of Meyer's theory as a general principle of source-criticism will not be expressly discussed in this paper. My purpose is rather to examine the Timoleon only, especially in relation to the Timoleon of Nepos, and to suggest a method of composition here adopted by Plutarch, who, I believe, based his Life upon a secondary biography and supplemented this from a primary historical authority.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1938 , pp. 65 - 74

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800017821 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1938

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^{page 65 note 1} Of special importance are band, Uxkull-Gyllen-, Plut. u. d. griech. Biographic (1927)Google Scholar, and Barbu, , … les biographies de Plutarque (1934)Google Scholar Hereafter these will be referred to as U.-G. and B.

^{page 65 note 2} Arnoldt, , Timoleon pp. 21–5Google Scholar; Holden, , Plutarch's Life of Timoleon ³ p. livGoogle Scholar; Laqueur, RE. vi a, col. 1188 and 1203; Stier, ibid. 1277. On Plutarch NO. 2., VOL. XXXII. only, Meltzer, , Gesch. d. Karthager I p. 516Google Scholar; Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. Ill 2 p. 48Google Scholar.

^{page 65 note 3} Forschungen II (1899) pp. 67–9Google Scholar, cp. Schmid-Stählin, , Gesch. d. gr. Lit. II (1920) pp. 521 sqqGoogle Scholar.

^{page 65 note 4} There are several obvious blunders in his Themistocles and his Cimon. The latter resembles his Timoleon in that it is a eulogy containing both exaggerations and inaccuracies.

^{page 66 note 1} Clasen, , Hist.-krit. Unters. ϋ. Timaios (1883), p. 75Google Scholar, suggests that Plutarch may have passed over this detail because it was discreditable to his hero. It is more likely that Nepos has mis-understood συγκαλύπτεσθαι or some similar word (cp. Plut. loc. cit.), believing that it referred to efforts by Timoleon to ‘conceal’ the action of his fellow-conspirators.

^{page 66 note 2} In ‘regiones’ Nepos seems to be making a rather feeble attempt to reproduce προαστÍοις (cp.I'lut. 22. 3) or some such word which stood in his original.

^{page 66 note 3} An example of exaggeration arising from Nepos' method of compression may here be noted. According to him (5) Timoleon was consuited on all public matters, whereas we know from Plutarch (38. 5) that the Syracusans transacted minor business in his absence and only invited him πÌ τðς μεδονας διασκψεις.

^{page 67 note 1} After ‘natali suo die’ the phrase ‘eius diem natalem’ is pleonastic. Perhaps Nepos' source contained some such statement as ‘he was attended by good fortune in all his victories SO that all Sicily kept his birthday as a festival’.

^{page 67 note 2} Beloch, , op. cit. p. 44Google Scholar.

^{page 67 note 3} Schwartz, , Htrmes XXXIV (1899) p. 490Google Scholar; Laqueur, op. cit. 1081. One fragment (ap. Athen. XI 471 F) contains details which must have been of very slight importance.

^{page 68 note 1} The second of Mr. N. G. L. Hammond's articles in this journal on The Sources of Diodorus Siculus XVI will deal with this problem. I am fortunate enough to have read this article before publication.

^{page 68 note 2} Diod. XVI. 82. 4.

^{page 68 note 3} It might be argued that both used an epitome of Timaeus, but, as will be shown below, the nature of the material included by Nepos suggests a biographical rather than an historical source.

^{page 68 note 4} Plutarch must have read Timaeus' account of the Athenian expedition to Sicily, for the long criticism in the opening of the Nicias (1, cp. also Dion 35. 6–36. 2) can scarcely have been borrowed from another author.

^{page 69 note 1} B. pp. 20–35.

^{page 69 note 2} Pp. 109–12.

^{page 69 note 3} Cary, , C.R. XLII (1928) p. 30Google Scholar; Weizsācker, , Unters. ü. Plutarcks biog. Tichnik p. 82Google Scholar; B. pp. 19 28 sqq.; Stuart, , A.J.P. LVIII (1937) p. 357Google Scholar.

^{page 69 note 4} U.-G. pp. 93–4.

^{page 69 note 5} There is at least one exception: the last sentence of Nepos (3. 3) has no parallel in Plutarch.

^{page 69 note 6} One of these was doubtless to be found in the digression on demagogues which formed Book X of Theopompus' Philippica.

^{page 69 note 7} Cp. Cic, ad Fam.V. 12.7; Marcellinus, , Vit.Thuc. 27Google Scholar.

^{page 70 note 1} On Peripatetic biography in general see Leo, , Die gr.-rüm. Biographic pp. 85–135Google Scholar; U.-G. pp. 99–103; Stuart, , Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography pp. 118–188Google Scholar.

^{page 70 note 2} The attempt of Barbu to prove that no political biography whatever was written by the Peripatetics is based mainly on ex silentio arguments and has been severely criticized by Stuart (A.J.P. loc. cit.).

^{page 70 note 3} Leo, , op. cit. pp. 109–110Google Scholar, regards Phaenias as a reliable researcher. As he was a pupil of Aristotle and anterior to Timaeus, he cannot of course have written the biography of Timoleon used by Nepos and Plutarch.

^{page 70 note 4} There seems no reason to doubt that the long fragment on Alcibiades (F.H.G. Ill 160) comes from a biographical work.

^{page 70 note 5} The conclusion of Barbu pp. 25–6 that Satyrus, when writing on men of action, included nothing but sensational anecdotes about their private lives is entirely arbitrary.

^{page 70 note 6} Cp. B. pp. 47–71. Paton, , C.R. XXVII (1913) pp. 131–2Google Scholar, draws attention to two parallels between fragments of Satyrus' Life of Euripides and passages in the Moralia.

^{page 70 note 7} Plut, , Demosth. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 70 note 8} One of the two citations from Athanis in the Timoleon (37. 9) occurs in a part where I believe Plutarch to be using his biographical source exclusively (see below p. 72). But this does not indicate that the Peripatetic biographer used Athanis; it is far more likely that he copied a citation in Timaeus, which was in turn copied by Plutarch. That Plutarch himself was familiar with the work of this obscure historian is most improbable (cp. Beloch, , op. cit. p. 43Google Scholar).

^{page 71 note 1} See below p. 72.

^{page 71 note 2} See above p. 68, n. 4.

^{page 71 note 3} Theopompus does not seem to have con-tinued his Sicilian narrative beyond the expul-sion of Dionysius II (Diod. XVI. 71. 3).

^{page 71 note 4} The name of Nicodemus appears in the fragment of Timaeus referred to in p. 67, n. 3.

^{page 71 note 5} In spite of the compression of the narrative in these chapters there are two verse quotations (31. 1; 32. 3). Plutarch himself sometimes quotes verse, but it was a very common practice of the Peripatetics, as has been confirmed by the papyrus fragments of Satyrus' Life of Euripides.

^{page 71 note 6} Holden, , op. cit. p. livGoogle Scholar.

^{page 72 note 1} Cp. Stuart, , op. cit. p. 177Google Scholar (on Hermippus).

^{page 72 note 2} The story of the mules laden with parsley is known from Mor. 676D to have originated from Timaeus. The absence of citation where this story is told in the Timoleon (26) suggests, though it does not prove, that the narrative at this point comes from a single source.

^{page 71 note 3} Polyb. XII 25, 25k, 26a. Diodorus (79. 2 reproduces a point from this speech. Perhaps a phrase in Plutarch (26. 3, πρποντα τῷ καιρῷ) may be regarded as a criticism of Timaeus' pedantry.

^{page 71 note 4} Cp. the conversations between the mercenaries of the opposing parties (20. 3–10).

^{page 73 note 1} On the treatment of citations in Plutarch see Klotz, , Rhein. Mus. LXXXIII (1934) pp. 291–2Google Scholar.

^{page 73 note 2} The technical term πικρτεια, which Holden (loc. cit.) believes to have been introduced by Timaens, appears in Plato's Letters (VII. 349c). Its nse in Diodorus and Plutarch only proves that the original authority had special knowledge of Sicily. The phrase τòν' Αττικòν πбλεμον 35–2) also perhaps indicates Sicilian origin.

^{page 73 note 3} See above on Nepos 1. 2.

^{page 73 note 4} The story of Phocion reappears in Phtc. 23 and Mor. I88D, where the differences of phraseology show that Plutarch did not copy his anecdotes verbatim.

^{page 73 note 5} The Peripatetic Clearchus was one of these (Athen. XII. 541C-E).

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