with an army of seventy thousand foot and ten thousand horse; but Timoleon, with a force of only twelve thousand men, totally defeated the invaders (339 b.c.) on the river Crimisus, and obtained an immense booty. He then resumed his project of expelling the tyrants, two of whom, Hicetas of Leontini, and Mamercus of Catana, sought and obtained assistance from the Carthaginians; but the former fell into the hands of Timoleon, who caused him to be executed, and his wife and daughters were put to death by the Syracusans in revenge for the execution by Hicetas of the wife and sister of Dion—a cruel deed, which has left a deep stain on the character of Timoleon, as he could easily have prevented it. He concluded a treaty with the Carthaginians in 338, and shortly after besieged Messana, in which Mamercus had taken refuge with Hippon, tyrant of that city. The latter, attempting to escape, was put to death by the citizens, and Mamercus having surrendered on condition that he should obtain a public trial before the Syracusans, was condemned by them without a hearing, and executed. The democratical form of government was then established throughout Sicily. Timoleon now retired into private life, and died at Syracuse in 337 b.c., having become blind a short time before his death. A monument was erected to his memory, and annual games were instituted in his honour.—J. T.
TIMOMACHUS, of Byzantium, one of the most celebrated of the later Greek painters. Pliny relates that Julius Cæsar gave an enormous sum of money for two pictures by this master, an "Ajax;" and "Medea meditating the Murder of her Children." Timomachus was probably then dead.—R. N. W.
TIMON, the poet and philosopher, was a native of Phlius, and flourished in the third century b.c. After studying philosophy under Stilpo at Megara and Pyrrho at Elis, he settled at Athens, where he lived to an advanced age. He was a voluminous writer, and his satiric poems were highly celebrated in antiquity. His philosophy appears to have been sensuous and sceptical, but only a few fragments of his writings now remain.—G.
TIMON, the misanthrope, was an Athenian of noble birth and considerable wealth, contemporary with Socrates. Becoming disgusted with the world he shut himself up in complete seclusion, admitting, it is said, no one to his presence except Alcibiades. Such is nearly all that can be collected respecting Timon from the original authorities. Plutarch, who wrote long afterwards, added many traditional details, and on his narrative is based the noble drama of Shakspeare, Timon of Athens.—G.
TIMOTHEUS, a poet and musician of Miletus, was born about 450 b.c. He became very popular in Greece as a musician, and is said, among other innovations, to have introduced the use of eleven strings for the lyre. These changes, however, exposed him to the censure of the poets of the old comedy at Athens, who charged him with corrupting the ancient poetry and music of the nation after the manner of Euripides, whom indeed he seems to have not a little resembled. He died in 357.—G.
TIMOTHEUS, the Athenian general, was one of the most celebrated commanders of the age. We first hear of him as intrusted with command in 378 b.c. Three years later he was sent with sixty ships to ravage the coast of Laconia, and succeeded also in bringing Corcyra into alliance with Athens. In 372 b c. he took service under the Persian monarch Artaxerxes, and experienced many singular adventures. Reassuming command as an Athenian general in 364 b c., he prosecuted the war in Thrace for some years with varying fortune. In the main, however, he seems to have been considered successful, although he was unable to capture Amphipolis. In 356 b.c. he was one of the commanders in an unsuccessful sea-fight; and being brought to trial two years later for this offence, was fined the enormous sum of one hundred talents, contrary to all reason and justice. Driven into exile by the customary ingratitude of his countrymen, he died soon afterwards, and the fine was ultimately paid by his son Conon. Timotheus is said to have been of a humane and generous character.—G.
TIMUR or TAMERLANE, Sultan, one of the greatest of oriental conquerors, was born in 1335 at Kesh, a town to the south-east of Samarcand. He was the son of a chief in that district, and could boast a royal ancestry, being lineally descended from Genghis Khan by the female side. The boyhood of Timur was spent among the feuds and contentions of the Mongolian nobles; for, under the successors of Genghis Khan in the fourteenth century, the vices that seem inherent in all Asiatic monarchies appeared, and strife and misrule became the preludes to the dissolution of their empire. Until the age of twenty-seven Timur had not been peculiarly distinguished in arms, but at that period he commenced the career destined to be ultimately so famous. His first adventures were the efforts he made to restore the independence of his country, which had been invaded by the Calmucks. In one of his earliest engagements he happened to receive a wound in the thigh, which resulted in lameness, and hence the name Tamerlane, a corruption by Europeans of the epithet "Timurlenk," or "lame Timur." Triumphant over some rival chiefs, he was proclaimed khan of Zagatai in 1369, and selected Samarcand for his capital. The crown of that kingdom was the first of fourteen that, before his death, encircled his victorious brow. Gradually extending his conquests, he conceived the bold and ambitious design of subjugating all the countries which had once obeyed his celebrated ancestor, and resolved to begin with Khorasan. The attempt had a successful issue; and ere long the whole of that part of Persia—the northeastern portion—submitted to Timur's yoke. During his conquest of Khorasan, the people of Sebsewar, one of its captured cities, revolted; and we are told that after retaking the place, Timur built two thousand of the inhabitants alive, one upon the other, until they formed a tower of human beings, and cemented each living layer to the next by mortar, as if they were bricks instead of men. An atrocity so execrable, and on a scale so colossal—unless, indeed, it be the exaggeration of the fable-loving eastern phantasy—robs us of all faith in the true nobility of Timur's character, and dethrones him from his pedestal among the grander class of conquerors. In an inferior rank his position must be assigned; nor do we feel prepared, after a careful examination of his eventful history, to allow him even the possession of that rare genius which has often characterized the scourges of the human race. He had talent, boldness, prudence, energy, all in a high degree; but the lightning flash of genius is lacking in the terrible picture of his life. Yet his warlike policy was invariably successful. By 1387 the principal part of Persia had fallen into his hands, and the work of devastation was fitly crowned by the storming of Ispahan, where seventy thousand heads were laid at the feet of the victor, who ordered them to be piled up by his soldiers in the public places of the city. To subdue the kingdom of Kiptshak was the next object of the great Tartar's ambition. This he accomplished after a war which lasted from 1387 to 1396, and which was signalized by many sanguinary engagements; among others, the famous battle fought on the 18th June, 1391, between Timur and Toktamish, khan of Kiptshak, when the entire army of the latter was annihilated. Timur still continued to reside at Samarcand, when not, as was most frequently the case, employed actively in the field; and it was to this capital that he transplanted the artists and scholars of the conquered countries; for the man was, in his own barbaric fashion, a patron of science and literature. Meanwhile also, during the Kiptshak campaigns, the territories of the king of Bagdad were invaded. The city of that name surrendered without resistance to the arms of Timur, and its sultan and his family had to flee for their lives. After many wonderful marches, and many minor yet bloody conflicts, the conquest of the entire kingdom of Kiptshak was completed in 1396, at which time, we are informed, Timur had penetrated as far as Moscow. Master thus of ample dominions—but the old thirst for universal empire still unquenched in his bosom—he retired to Samarcand only to prepare for a more gigantic effort, that aimed at the subjugation of India. Under some pretext he declared war against Mahmud, who then reigned at Delhi, and in 1398 he led his Tartar hordes across the Indus, traversing the Punjaub from north-west to south-east, and spreading terror in every direction. Many thousands of prisoners taken on his march he ordered to be massacred. Near Delhi the Indian army was defeated, and that opulent city fell into the hands of Timur, who delivered it up to the rapacity of his followers. After pursuing the fugitive troops of Mahmud as far as the sources of the Ganges, the conqueror, at the close of this campaign of a single year, returned to Samarcand. The war with Bajazet, sultan of Turkey, was the last great incident in the life of Timur. The Tartar resolved to humble the pride of the Turk—or rather, the desire was mutual—and after provoking Bajazet by threatening letters, he invaded the Ottoman empire in 1402. Its sultan was then besieging Constantinople; but hastily breaking up his camp before that city, he marched against the invading Mongols who were attacking Angora in Asia Minor. Here, on the 28th
