Note 134 — Chapter LXXXIV · SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE ELDER DIONYSIUS — DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER — AND DION.
Reading edition
Tacitus, Histor. ii. 49. “Othoni sepulcrum exstructum est, modicum, et mansurum.”
A person named Timæus was immortalized as the constructor of the funeral pile: see Athenæus, v. p. 206. Both Göller (Timæi Fragm. 95) and M. Didot (Timæi Fr. 126) have referred this passage to Timæus the historian, and have supposed it to relate to the description given by Timæus of the funeral-pile. But the passage in Athenæus seems to me to indicate Timæus as the builder, not the describer, of this famous πυρά.
It is he who is meant, probably, in the passage of Cicero (De Naturâ Deor. iii. 35)—(Dionysius) “in suo lectulo mortuus in Tympanidis rogum illatus est, eamque potestatem quam ipse per scelus erat nactus, quasi justam et legitimam hereditatis loco filio tradidit.” This seems at least the best way of explaining a passage which perplexes the editors: see the note of Davis.