Timocles

(Τιμοκλῆς).

1. A tragic poet of uncertain date, who is distinguished from the comic poet (No. 2) by Athenaeus (ix. p. 407b.) in the following words, Τιμοκλῆς ὁ τῆς κωμῳδίας ποιητής, ἦ δὲ καὶ τραγῳδίας, which Schweighäuser has unaccountably misunderstood, as if they implied the identity of the comic and the tragic poet, whereas they mean " Timocles the comic poet, but there was also a tragic" (poet of the same name). There is, however, no other mention of this poet; for, although a quotation, from Sophocles in Plutarch (Timol. 36) is ascribed by some MSS. to Timocles, it is so evident that the latter reading may have arisen, according to a frequent and well-known error of transcription, out of a confusion with the word Τιμολέοντος just before, that the balance of probability is in favour of the common reading, and accordingly the passage is placed by Dindorf and Ahrens among the fragments of Sophocles (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 325; Welcker, die Griech. Tragöd. p. 1100; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. p. 430; Wagner, Frag. Com. Graec. p. 146, in Didot's Bibliotheca).