Timaeus

Timaios was the son of Andromache, who founded the city of Tauromenium (today's Taormina) in Sicily. Around 317 BC, Timaios was sent into exile by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles. He then lived for about 50 years in Athens, where he studied rhetoric at the school of Isocrates and wrote his works. During the reign of the Syracusan tyrant Hieron II, he was allowed to return to Sicily, where he died.

His most important work is called the History, but only a fragment of it survives. The work was to be written in 38 books, describing events in Sicily, Italy and Carthage since mythical times. Later, he added to the work the events surrounding King Pyrrhus. The last event is the First Punic War.

Another work by Timaios is a chronography about Olympic victors.

His works are not very objective; he only found fault with some of his characters or accused his predecessors of lies. This is why he was derisively called "Epitimaios" (the Shamer). Another criticism was that he supposedly did not personally know the places he wrote about. On the contrary, his strength was his accuracy, which he had backed up with facts from many different sources.