Timotheus of Miletus
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Timotheus of Miletus(Ancient Greek:Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος;c. 446 – 357 BC) was aGreekmusician and dithyrambicpoet,an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to thelyre,whereby he incurred the displeasure of theSpartansandAthenians(E. Curtius,Hist of Greece,bk. v. ch. 2). He composed musical works of a mythological and historical character.[1]
He spent some years in the court ofArchelaus I of Macedon.
Fragments of Timotheus' poetry survive, published in Denys Page,Poetae Melici Graeci.A papyrus-fragment of hisPersians(one of the oldest Greekpapyriin 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.[1][2]
Conflation[edit]
In post-Classical literature Timotheus of Miletus is sometimes confused with another famous musician, theauleteTimotheusin the court ofAlexander the Great.[3]
Rabelaisspeaks of the musician in Chapter 23 ofGargantua"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[edit]
- ^abpublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Timotheus".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 991. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^V. Strazzulla,Persiani di Eschilo ed il nomo di Timoteo(1904); S. Sudhaus inRhein. Mus.,iviii. (1903), p. 481; and T. Reinach and M. Croiset inRevue des etudes grecques,xvi. (1903), pp. 62, 323.
- ^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.
External links[edit]
- English translationof thePersiansby 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 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
- 4th-century BC musicians
- Greek musician stubs