Timaeus of Lokroi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timaeus of Lokroi (also Timaeus of Lokri ; ancient Greek Τίμαιος Λοκρός Tímaios Lokrós , Latinized Timaeus Locrus ) was supposedly a philosopher from the school of the Pythagoreans . As a conversation partner of Socrates he would have to be in the 5th century BC. Have lived. His existence is uncertain, however, since he only appears as a literary figure in two dialogues of Plato ; all information in later sources is based on these dialogues or is made up. Timaeus is the main sub-speaker of the dialogue Timaeus named after him and also appears in Critias .

Question of historical existence

Timaeus appears to Plato as a distinguished and wealthy citizen of the Greek colony Lokroi Epizephyrioi (today Locri in Calabria ), who had held high offices in his hometown before he came to Athens, where the literary conversation in Timaeus supposedly took place. Plato does not explicitly say that he was a Pythagorean, but it can easily be deduced from his statements in dialogue. His competence in all areas of philosophy, especially in the field of natural philosophy , as well as in astronomy is emphasized.

In ancient times, Timaeus' existence was not in doubt. Cicero writes that Plato traveled to Italy to find out more about Pythagorean wisdom from Timaeus and other Pythagoreans. The news that Plato had met Timaeus on his trip to Italy led the scholar Macrobius to the conclusion in late antiquity that Timaeus could not have been a contemporary and interlocutor of Socrates, who was no longer alive at the time. The late antique philosopher Iamblichus lists Timaeus among the well-known Pythagoreans.

The prevailing view in modern antiquity is that Plato invented the figure of Timaeus. It is believed that he gave her features of well-known Pythagoreans such as Archytas of Taranto . The main argument for the hypothesis of a literary fiction is that all of the information that has been handed down about Timaeus can be derived from Plato's statements. A counter-argument is that Plato usually allows historical characters to appear in his dialogues.

Fake works

Pseudo-Timaeus of Lokroi, On the nature of the cosmos and the soul in a manuscript from the possession of Cardinal Bessarion . Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana , Gr. 517, fol. 4r (15th century)

A script written in Doric dialect with the title On the nature of the cosmos and the soul ( Περὶ φύσιος κόσμω καὶ ψυχᾶς Peri phýsios kósmō kai psychās ), which has been preserved in full and has been handed down in more than fifty manuscripts, begins with the words “Timaeus the Lokrians said the following “. In the authoritative manuscripts it is referred to as the work of Timaeus. It is first mentioned in sources in the 2nd century AD (in Nicomachus of Gerasa and in the Timaios commentary by Lukios Calbenos Tauros ). Their authenticity was not doubted in ancient times. It contains a summary of the teachings that Timaeus of Lokroi preaches in Plato's dialogue Timaeus , and its structure largely corresponds to Plato's work. It was therefore believed that it was a script by Timaeus, which Plato used as a template for the main part of his dialogue (the speech of Timaeus). This assumption was obvious because as early as the 3rd century BC The rumor circulated that the Timaeus was a plagiarism ; It was alleged that Plato bought a Pythagorean book for a lot of money, from which he took the teachings of natural philosophy presented in the Timaeus . This book has now been identified with On the Nature of the Cosmos and the Soul .

Only modern philological research has shown that about the nature of the cosmos and the soul from the late 1st century BC Or from the 1st century AD and is based on Plato's Timaeus . It is one of the numerous pseudepigraphic philosophical treatises whose anonymous authors ascribed their writings to well-known Pythagoreans of the past. A main difference to Plato's Timaeus is that Pseudo-Timaeus only reproduces the teaching content and dispenses with the justifications and methodological considerations. On the other hand, he occasionally adds his own reasons and material from other Platonic dialogues. His attitude to the issues discussed is clearer than that of Plato's Timaeus, and his approach is school-based. Individual passages in pseudo-Timaeus are incomprehensible or misleading if one does not know the dialogue Timaeus . The style of the pseudo-Timaeus is sober in comparison with the enthusiastic idiom in platonic dialogue.

About the nature of the cosmos and the soul shows traces of the thought world and terminology of Middle Platonism ; in particular, points of contact with the writings of Eudorus of Alexandria and Philons of Alexandria are recognizable. Hence, the hypothesis is plausible that the author lived in Alexandria and was familiar with the philosophy of Eudorus. He modernized the natural philosophy of Plato's Timaeus by taking into account developments in Hellenistic astronomy and medicine.

Apparently material from an older, now-lost Timaeus commentary (or several) has been incorporated. According to a hypothesis by Richard Harder , accepted by some scholars of antiquity, the work was created in two stages: Pseudo-Timaeus, the author of the traditional version, revised an older Timaeus adaptation from the Hellenistic period .

In the Suda , a Byzantine Encyclopedia of the 10th century, and in scholia on Plato's Timaeus Timaeus is a font of Locri Mathematica attributed about nothing else is known. Probably it is a confusion of the Timaeus of Lokroi with an astrologer of the same name. Furthermore, Timaeus of Lokroi is said to have written a biography of Pythagoras ; this message is probably due to a confusion with the historian Timaeus of Tauromenion , who dealt with the activity of Pythagoras in his historical work.

reception

The writing "About the nature of the cosmos and the soul" was still known to the late ancient Neo-Platonists Iamblichos, Syrianos , Proklos and Simplikios . The work of Pseudo-Timaeus supported the belief, which was widespread in Neo-Platonic circles, that Pythagoreanism and Platonism form a unified doctrinal structure. This corresponded to the intention of the anonymous author, who wanted to document the inclusion of Plato in the Pythagorean tradition.

In the 15th century the humanist Giorgio Valla translated “On the nature of the cosmos and the soul” into Latin; In 1498 his translation was printed in Venice. The Greek text appeared for the first time in 1513 as part of a complete Plato edition by Aldo Manuzio in Venice. A number of other prints followed; the work, which continued to serve as a model for Plato's Timaeus in the 16th century (also in the Stephen edition of Plato's works), was often included in the Plato prints.

swell

  • Maria Timpanaro Cardini (Ed.): Pitagorici. Testimonianze e frammenti . Vol. 2, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1962, pp. 402–405 (Greek source texts with Italian translation and commentary)

Text editions and translations

  • Walter Marg (Ed.): Timaeus Locrus, De natura mundi et animae. Editio maior . Brill, Leiden 1972, ISBN 90-04-03505-2 (authoritative critical edition with German translation; pp. 83–113 compilation of source references with commentary)
  • Thomas H. Tobin (Ed.): Timaios of Locri, On the Nature of the World and the Soul . Scholars Press, Chico (California) 1985, ISBN 0-89130-767-2 (Greek text with introduction, English translation and commentary)

literature

  • Matthias Baltes : Timaios Lokros, About the nature of the cosmos and the soul . Brill, Leiden 1972 (detailed commentary)
  • Bruno Centrone: La cosmologia di pseudo Timeo di Locri ed il Timeo di Platone . In: Elenchos 3, 1982, pp. 293-324
  • Constantinos Macris: Timée de Locres and Timée de Locres (Pseudo-Timée). In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 7, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2018, ISBN 978-2-271-09024-9 , pp. 987-1009 and 1009-1017

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Plato, Timaeus 20a, 27a.
  2. ↑ Cicero, De re publica 1.16 and De finibus bonorum et malorum 5.87; on the latter point Valerius Maximus 8,7 ext. 3.
  3. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1,1,5.
  4. ↑ This view is, for example, Walter Burkert : Weisheit und Wissenschaft , Nürnberg 1962, p. 75 and Charles H. Kahn: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. A Brief History , Indianapolis 2001, p. 56.
  5. ↑ Walter Marg (Ed.): Timaeus Locrus, De natura mundi et animae , Leiden 1972, p. 83 f .; Marg p. 84 refers to an exception that has no evidential value.
  6. ↑ Maria Timpanaro Cardini (Ed.): Pitagorici is one of the few ancient scholars who reckon with the possibility that it is a historical person . Testimonianze e frammenti , Vol. 2, Firenze 1962, pp. 402-404 and Michael Erler : Platon , Basel 2007, pp. 50, 263; they even suspect that Plato visited Timaeus in Lokroi.
  7. ↑ Walter Marg (Ed.): Timaeus Locrus, De natura mundi et animae , Leiden 1972, p. 76 f.
  8. ↑ Richard Harder provides a detailed comparison: Timaios. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Vol. VI A, 1, Stuttgart 1936, Sp. 1203–1226, here: 1205–1220.
  9. ↑ See also Alice Swift Riginos: Platonica. The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writings of Plato , Leiden 1976, pp. 169-174.
  10. ^ Matthias Baltes: Timaios Lokros, On the nature of the cosmos and the soul , Leiden 1972, pp. 1–3, 20–26; Thomas H. Tobin (Ed.): Timaios of Locri, On the Nature of the World and the Soul , Chico (California) 1985, pp. 3-7.
  11. ↑ Richard Harder: Timaeus. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Vol. VI A, 1, Stuttgart 1936, Sp. 1203–1226, here: 1219–1221.
  12. ↑ Matthias Baltes: Timaios Lokros, About the nature of the cosmos and the soul , Leiden 1972, pp. 20-26.
  13. ↑ Richard Harder: Timaeus. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Vol. VI A, 1, Stuttgart 1936, Sp. 1203–1226, here: 1220–1226; Bruno Centrone expresses his approval: La cosmologia di pseudo Timeo di Locri ed il Timeo di Platone . In: Elenchos 3, 1982, pp. 293-324, here: 324. Thomas H. Tobin (ed.): Timaios of Locri, On the Nature of the World and the Soul , Chico (California) 1985, p 17–19, which also distinguishes between two phases: an original version and its later translation into the Doric dialect.
  14. ↑ References in Walter Marg (ed.): Timaeus Locrus, De natura mundi et animae , Leiden 1972, pp. 88–110.