Timaeus the Sophist

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Timaeus the Sophist ( Greek  Τίμαιος σοφιστής Tímaios sophistḗs ) was an ancient Greek lexicographer . He lived during the Roman Empire and wrote an encyclopedia on the works of the philosopher Plato . Nothing is known about the life of Timaeus. His nickname "the Sophist " is recorded in the only surviving manuscript in the lexicon; In the Roman Empire it was a learned writer and was not meant to be derogatory.

Dictionary

Timaeus created the lexicon on the basis of older, no longer preserved Plato commentaries. He mentions his name in the dedication letter. He dedicates the work to a friend, an otherwise unknown Roman, for whom the Greek forms of name Gaiatianos and Gaitianos have been handed down; his name may have been Caietanus, Gentianus or Gratianus. Completion time is difficult to determine; a quote from a work by the Neo-Platonist Porphyrios has no evidential value for the dating, since it is probably an interpolation .

The lexicon has survived in only one manuscript from the 10th century, which is now in the French National Library in Paris. In the version received, it contains additions that did not come from the author. This can be seen from the fact that numerous words have been included that Plato never used, and that some words have different meanings than those relevant to Plato's texts. Presumably the lexicon was gradually expanded after the death of its author. In some cases only one of several meanings of an expression that occurs in Plato's works is given.

While it was assumed in older research that the surviving text was complete, according to the current state of research it can be assumed that the manuscript contains only an abbreviated version.

There is not a single philosophical term among the 468 alphabetically ordered expressions, which Timaeus only briefly explains. More than a third of the expressions in Plato appear in only one place. As Timaeus communicates in the dedication letter, he is concerned with clarifying words and phrases with unusual meanings as well as dialectal peculiarities of Plato's Attic language , which were not only familiar to the Romans, but also to most of the Greeks of his time. Occasionally he goes into the etymology .

reception

Sure traces of a use of the lexicon in antiquity have not yet been found. It is uncertain whether the Neoplatonist Hermeias of Alexandria (5th century) used it for his commentary on Plato's dialogue Phaedrus .

Around the middle of the 9th century, the famous Byzantine scholar Photios consulted the lexicon, whose value he estimated to be relatively low, and made notes on it in his library .

In the early modern period , the lexicon was long lost. The manuscript reached France in the 17th century. The scholar Bernard de Montfaucon discovered them in a French private library and published a partial edition in 1715. 1754 was published in Leiden by David Ruhnken got first complete edition.

Text editions and translations

  • Maddalena Bonelli, Jonathan Barnes (eds.): Timée le Sophiste: Lexique platonicien . Brill, Leiden 2007, ISBN 978-90-04-15887-0 (critical edition with French translation and detailed commentary)
  • Stefano Valente (Ed.): I lessici a Platone di Timeo Sofista e Pseudo-Didimo. Introduzione ed edizione critica . De Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-024079-5

literature

  • Maddalena Bonelli: Timée le Sophiste. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 6, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2016, ISBN 978-2-271-08989-2 , pp. 1200-1202
  • Maddalena Bonelli: La lexicographie philosophique antique . In: Catherine Darbo-Peschanski (ed.): La citation dans l'Antiquité . Editions Jérôme Millon, Grenoble 2004, ISBN 2-84137-162-X , pp. 85-93
  • Maddalena Bonelli: La lessicografia filosofica nell'antichità: il lessico platonico di Timeo sofista . In: Elenchos 18, 1997, pp. 29-56
  • Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes (ed.): The Platonism in antiquity , Volume 3: The Platonism in the 2nd and 3rd centuries after Christ . Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, ISBN 3-7728-1155-8 , pp. 230-235

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the dedication letter, see Maddalena Bonelli, Jonathan Barnes (ed.): Timée le Sophiste: Lexique platonicien , Leiden 2007, pp. 12–19; Amneris Roselli: Nota su οὐκ ἄμουσος παιδιά nel proemio del Lexicon Platonicum di Timeo Sofista . In: Studi Classici e Orientali 16/1, 1996, pp. 213-217.
  2. ↑ Maddalena Bonelli: La lessicografia filosofica nell'antichità: il lessico platonico di Timeo sofista . In: Elenchos 18, 1997, pp. 29-56, here: 42 f.
  3. ↑ Maddalena Bonelli, Jonathan Barnes (eds.): Timée le Sophiste: Lexique platonicien , Leiden 2007, p. 26.
  4. ^ Greek text and German translation of the relevant passages in Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, pp. 54 f., 58 f.
  5. ↑ For the manuscript and its history see Martin de Leeuw: Der Coislinianus 345 in the Megisti Lavra monastery (Athos) . In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 131, 2000, pp. 58–64 ( online ; PDF; 92 kB).
personal data
SURNAME Timaeus the Sophist
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tímaios Sophistes; Timaeus Sophista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek lexicographer
DATE OF BIRTH between 1st century BC BC and 5th century
DATE OF DEATH between 1st century BC BC and 5th century