Editing Timocreon (section)

===Fragment 727 PMG===

This is the largest extant poem attributed to Timocreon. It was quoted by Plutarch in a biography of Themistocles, as were the following two fragments, 728 and 729 (see Life above for historical context). It begins like a hymn of praise or [[encomium]] for the Athenian hero, [[Aristides]], but soon turns into a denunciation of Themistocles.

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{{lang|grc|ἀλλ᾽ εἰ τύ γε Παυσανίαν ἢ καὶ τύ γε Ξάνθιππον αἰνεῖς<br />
ἢ τύ γε Λευτυχίδαν, ἐγὼ δ᾽ Ἀριστείδαν ἐπαινέω<br />                         
ἄνδρ᾽ ἱερᾶν ἀπ᾽ Ἀθανᾶν<br />
ἐλθεῖν ἕνα λῷστον: ἐπεὶ Θεμιστοκλῆ ἤχθαρε Λατώ,<br />
<br />
ψεύσταν, ἄδικον, προδόταν, ὃς Τιμοκρέοντα ξεῖνον ἐόντα<br />
ἀργυρίοισι κοβαλικοῖσι πεισθεὶς οὐ κατᾶγεν<br />
πάτρίδ᾽ Ἰαλυσόν εἰσω,<br />
λαβὼν δὲ τρί᾽ ἀργυρίου τάλαντ᾽ ἔβα πλέων εἰς ὄλεθρον,<br />
<br />
τοὺς μὲν κατάγων ἀδίκως, τοὺς δ᾽ ἐκδιώκων, τοὺς δὲ καίνων·<br />
ἀργυρίων ὑπόπλεως, Ἰσθμοῖ γελοίως πανδόκευε<br />  
ψυχρὰ τὰ κρεῖα παρίσχων·<br />
οἱ δ᾽ ἤσθιον κηὔχοντο μὴ ὥραν Θεμιστοκλεῦς γενέσθαι.}}<br />
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Well now, if you praise [[Pausanias (general)|Pausanias]] and you, sir, [[Xanthippus]],<br />
and you [[Leotychides]], I commend Aristides<br />
as the very best man to have come<br />
from holy Athens, for Themistocles was hated by [[Leto]]<br />
<br />
as a liar, a criminal, a traitor, bribed with baneful silver<br />
not to take Timocreon home to his native Ialysus<br />
though he was his guest and friend,<br />
but instead took his three talents of silver and sailed to perdition,<br />
<br />
restoring some to their homes unjustly, chasing out others, killing some.<br />
Gorged with silver, he made an absurd Isthmian innkeeper,<br />
serving cold meat: the guests<br />
ate up and prayed that Themistocles would go unnoticed.<ref>adaptation of David Campbell's translation, ''Greek Lyric'' IV, Loeb Classical Library (1992), pages 89, 91</ref>
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The poem is generally more valued by historians than by literary critics{{emdash}}it has been thought to lack elegance and wit, and it strangely includes elements of choral lyric though it is not a choral song but a solo performance. The choral elements are dactylo-epitrite meter and what seems to be triadic structure (i.e. strophe, antistrophe, epode)<ref>Ruth Scodel, 'Timocreon's Encomium of Aristides', ''Classical Antiquity'' Vol. 2, No. 1 (April 1983), page 102 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/25010786 online here]</ref><ref group="nb">David Campbell (''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), page 101-2) organises the verses to scan as follows:
:--uu-uu---u---u-x
:-uu-uu-x-u---u--
:-uu-uu--
:x-uu-uu-u-u---u--
Line 12 in the 'epode' scans differently:
:--u---u---u-u-u--

For a slightly different version see for example Bernadotte Perrin's 1914 edition of Plutarch's ''Themistocles'', chapter 21 at [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0074%3Achapter%3D21 Perseus digital library]</ref> [[C.M. Bowra]] considered it "a strange and uncomfortable poem".<ref>C.M. Bowra, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'' 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (1961), page 354</ref> Another scholar saw parallels between it and [[Anacreon]]'s ''Artemon'' but judged Anacreon's poem to have more grace and wit.<ref>G.M. Kirkwood, ''Early Greek Monody: the History of the Poetic Type'', Ithaca N.Y. (1974), page 183</ref> However, scholarly analysis of the poem has not produced agreement or convincing results and much depends on how we interpret the poet's tone.<ref>Noel Robertson, 'Timocreon and Themistocles', ''The American Journal of Philology'' Vol. 101 No. 1 (Spring 1980), page 61 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/294176 online here]</ref> The reference to Leto is obscure but she may have had some connection with Salamis or perhaps there was a temple to her at Corinth.<ref>David Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), page 407</ref>