Timomachus
Timomachus of Byzantium (or Timomachos, Ancient Greek: Τιμόμαχος) was an influential painter of the first century BCE.
Works
[edit | edit source]Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia (35.136), records that Julius Caesar had acquired two paintings by Timomachus, one of Ajax during his madness, and a Medea meditating the slaying of her children,[1] which cost him the considerable sum of 80 talents.[2]: 178 Scholars have connected these works with the carrying away of a Medea and Ajax from Cyzicus, an ancient port of Anatolia, mentioned in Cicero's In Verrem (2.4.135), and propose that Caesar acquired them there, shortly after his victory at Pharsalus.[3]: 308 The paintings, "a pair linked to each other by their rage",[4]: 210 were installed in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, and remained there until their destruction by fire in 80 CE.
The Anthology of Planudes preserves a number of epigrams on the Medea, which note its incomplete state, and praise its emotional intensity and verisimilitude. Scholars believe that two well-known depictions of Medea preserved at Pompeii were composed under the influence of Timomachus' work.[3]: 309–310
References
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