Providing some basic information about the Hellenistic grammarian and poet Timachidas of Rhodes, including his exact dating, is a challenge, given the long-standing problem of his possible identification with the Tιμαχίδας γησιτίμου Λινδοπολίτας, who is said to be one of the two authors of the long Hellenistic inscription known as the Lindian Chronicle.

In his first publication of the Lindian Chronicle (‘La chronique du temple lindien’, Bulletin de l’ Académie Royale des sciences et des lettres de Danemark 5–6 (1912)), Christian Blinkenberg identified the Tιμαχίδας of the inscription with the grammarian and poet Timachidas. In the introduction to his book, Ivan Matijašić provides us with an up-to-date and clear discussion of this problem and argues convincingly that there is no decisive evidence to support the idea that the Timachidas of the inscription was the same person as the homonymous grammarian and poet. On the one hand, their Rhodian background and dating roughly match, and their learned character has also been taken to support the identification. On the other hand, Matijašić points out that the extant fragments of the grammarian show no specific interest in historiographical texts, while the Lindian Chronicle betrays no philological interests. Moreover, Matijašić’s analysis of the narrative and stylistic features of the Lindian Chronicle lead him to conclude that there are no comparable features in the surviving fragments of the grammarian and poet Timachidas. Matijašić further shows that the name Timachidas was common in Hellenistic Rhodes, and thus that the identification of the grammarian with the co-author of the Lindian Chronicle is only one of many possibilities. On the basis of evidence found in the surviving fragments, Matijašić concludes that the grammarian and poet of this name must have been active between the second half of the second century BC and the early first century AD. The whole introduction presents the facts with great caution, without attempting to draw any conclusions that are not clearly evidenced.

The grammarian and poet Timachidas is known to us indirectly (mainly via Athenaeus’ Δειπνοσοφισταί) as the author of a gastronomical hexametric poem entitled Dinner Party (Δεῖπνον), a Glossary (Γλῶσσαι) and commentaries on Aristophanes’ Frogs, Euripides’ Medea, Menander’s Kolax and Eratosthenes’ Hermes. Some material from Timachidas’ lexicographical work Γλῶσσαι (a collection of rare and dialectal words) later found its way into the ancient and Byzantine lexicographical tradition, including Pamphilus of Alexandria, Pollux, Harpocration, Hesychius, the Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων, Photius, the Suda and the etymologica.

The fragments of Timachidas were first published by Christian Blinkenberg as an appendix to his edition of the Lindian Chronicle (Die lindische Tempelchronik (Bonn 1915)). In 2006 Fausto Montana included the fragments in his entry on Timachidas in the Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity (Leiden), along with a brief introduction but no translation or commentary. Not long afterwards, Matijašić published a new edition of the fragments together with an introduction, Italian translation and commentary (‘Timachidas di Rodi. Introduzione, edizione dei frammenti, traduzione e commento’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 6 (2014), 113–85).

The main differences between the present and previous editions are the arrangement of the fragments and the addition here of a small number of fragments that were not included in earlier editions. Compared with the 2014 edition, which it supersedes, the present edition also offers a revised introduction, especially with regard to the cultural and intellectual history of Hellenistic Rhodes; an expanded commentary, providing us with a broader understanding of the context of each fragment; and an English translation.

The text of each fragment is followed by critical apparatus, translation into English and then a commentary on the fragment. Where there are variant readings, Matijašić explains the reasoning behind his choices in the commentary; his textual choices appear to be soundly based and convincing.

This book is most welcome and makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the grammarian and poet Timachidas of Rhodes, his work, and the cultural and intellectual context in which he lived.