Timo'machus
（
*Timo/maxos), an Athenian, of the demus of Acharnae. In B. C. 366, he commanded a body of Athenian troops, which, in conjunction with a Lacedaemonian force, had been appointed to guard the Isthmus of Corinth against the Thebans.
But they neglected to occupy the passes of Oneium, and Epaminondas, who was preparing to invade Achaia, persuaded Peisias, the Argive general, to seize a commanding height of the mountain. The Thebans were thus enabled to make their way through the Isthmus (Xen.
Hell. vii. 1.41;
Diod. 15.75). Towards the end, apparently, of B. C. 361, Timomachus was sent out to take the command in Thrace, for which he seems to have been utterly unfit, and he failed quite as much at least as his immediate predecessors, Menon and Autocles, in forwarding the Athenian interests in that quarter. Not only were his military arrangements defective, but, according to the statement of Aeschines, it was through his culpable easiness of disposition that Hegesander, his treasurer (
ταμίας), was enabled to appropriate to his own use no less than 80 minae (more than 300
l.) of the public money. Timomachus appears to have been superseded by Cephisodotus in B. C. 360, and, on his return to Athens, was impeached by Apollodorus (son of Pasion, the banker), who had been one of his trierarchs.
He was condemned, and, according to Demosthenes, was heavily fined; but his punishment was death, if we may believe the statement of the Scholiast on Aeschines (Aesch.
c. Tim. p. 8; Schol.
ad loc. ; Dem.
de Fals. Leg. p. 398,
pro Phorm. p. 960,
c. Polycl. pp. 1210, &c. ; Rehdantz,
Vit. Iph., Chabr., Tim. cap. 5. §§ 7, 8).
It was during the command of Timomachus in Thrace that he received a letter from Cotys, who repudiated in it all the promises he had made to the Athenians when he wanted their aid against the rebel Miltocythes. (Dem.
c. Arist. p. 658.) [COTYS, No. 2.]
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