TIMOCREON

A Greek lyric poet, of Ialysus in Rhodes, who flourished about 480 B.C. He was a renowned athlete, and a friend of Themistocles. Suspected of treasonable intrigues with the Persians, he was banished from his home; and, not obtaining his recall by aid of Themistocles, he attacked him, as well as his rival Simonides, the friend of Themistocles, with scurrilous lampoons in the form of Aeolian and Dorian lyrics. He also composed scolia. Of his writings only a few fragments have come down to us, which show him to be a man of ability and of vehement passion. [Plutarch, Themistocles, 21.]