TILLY, JOHN TSERCLAS. 



TIMLEUS. 



M 



Juan of Austria, and Alexander Farnese. In the war of the Spaniards 

 against the Protestant inhabitants of the northern Netherlands he 

 acquired that hatred of heretics and that warlike enthusiasm for the 

 Roman Catholic religion, which became one of the most prominent 

 features of his character. Towards the end of the 16th century he 

 entered the service of the Emperor Rudolph II., and distinguished 

 himself, first as lieutenant-colonel, and afterwards as colonel and com- 

 mander of a regiment of Walloons, in the wars against the Hungarian 

 insurgents and the Sultans Murad III. and Ahmed I. After the peace 

 of Sitvatorok in 1606, between Rudolph II. and Ahmed I., he was 

 appointed commander-in-chief of the army of Maximilian, duke of 

 Bavaria, which was in a very disorgauised state. In 1609 Tilly com- 

 manded the expedition agaiust Donauwerth, an imperial town which 

 had been put under the ban for having persecuted the Roman Catho- 

 lics, and which surrendered to Tilly without defence. The Liga, or 

 the union of the Roman Catholic states in Germany, appointed him 

 commander-in-chief of their troops, and he held this high office until 

 his death. Tilly gained the first great victory in the Thirty Years' 

 War, which broke out in 1618. After having conquered the Upper 

 Palatinate with the troops of the Liga and those of the Duke of 

 Bavaria, he proposed to the Imperial generals to pursue the army of 

 Frederick, king of Bohemia, instead of taking winter-quarters and 

 thus losing all the fruits of their conquests. Warfare in winter was, 

 in the 17th century, a very uncommon thing, and Tilly met with 

 much opposition to his plan ; but at last the Imperial generals con- 

 sented to continue the war. Tilly attacked the Bohemians, who had 

 taken up a fortified position on the Weisse Berg, near Prague, and in 

 a few hours the Bohemian army was nearly destroyed (8th of Novem- 

 ber 1620), while only some hundreds of the Bavarians were killed. 

 Several of the Bohemian nobles, who lived at Prague or resided in 

 their castles, were warned by Tilly to fly if they would avoid the 

 vengeance of the emperor ; but they paid no attention to this generous 

 advice, and were surprised : twenty-seven of them were beheaded. 



After the brilliant victory on the Weisse Berg, Tilly hastened to the 

 Rhine for the purpose of preventing the Count of Mansfield from 

 joining the margrave of Baden. He succeeded in his object by his 

 skilful manoeuvres. The margrave of Baden-Durlach was attacked in 

 the defiles of Wimpfen, and defeated, after an heroic resistance (1622). 

 On the 2nd of June 1622, he defeated Christian of Halberstadt at 

 Hochst ; he pursued Christian and Mansfield to Westphalia ; defeated 

 them at Stadt-Loo, near Miinster, in a battle which lasted three days 

 (4th to the 6th of August 1623), and forced them both to disband 

 their troops and to take refuge in England. For this victory at Stadt- 

 Loo, Tilly was created a count of the empire. With extraordinary 

 skill Tilly first weakened and then destroyed the army of King 

 Christian IV. of Denmark ; but the principal glory of this campaign 

 was earned by Waldstein, who after having joined Tilly on the banks 

 of the Lower Elbe, persuaded Tilly to turn his arms against Holland, 

 and to leave him the conquest of Denmark. After Waldstein had been 

 deprived of his command in 1630, and Gustavus Adolphus, king of 

 Sweden had landed in Germany, Tilly was appointed field-marshal and 

 commander-in-chief of the imperial army. He appreciated so justly 

 the military talents of his new opponent, that in the assembly of the 

 electors of Ratisbon he declared Gustavus Adolphus to be so great a 

 commander, that not to be beaten by him was as honourable as to 

 gain victories over other generals. 



The first great event of the new campaign was the capture of 

 Magdeburg, on the 1 Oth of May 1 631. The Croats and the Walloons in 

 the imperial army committed unheard-of cruelties against the unhappy 

 inhabitants ; 30,000 of them were killed, and the town was entirely 

 destroyed after three days' plunder. It has generally been believed 

 that some imperial officers besought Tilly to stop the atrocities of the 

 soldiers, and that he coolly answered, " Let them alone, and come hack 

 in an hour." But this appears to be a mere invention, and however 

 severe Tilly was, he cannot be charged with having urged the commis- 

 sion of cruelty, although he considered the plunder of a conquered 

 town as the fair reward of the soldier. On the 14th of May Tilly 

 made his entrance into the smoking ruins of Magdeburg. In a letter 

 to the emperor he said that since the destruction of Troy and Jerusa- 

 lem there had been no such spectacle as that which Magdeburg pre- 

 sented. Six months later Tilly, who was in a fortified camp at 

 Breitenfield near Leipzig, was forced, by the impetuosity of his lieu- 

 tenant, Pappenheim, to engage in battle with Gustavus Adolphus 

 before his reinforcements had arrived. Tilly himself was successful 

 in his attack on the left wing of the Swedes, which was broken, and the 

 elector of Saxony, who commanded it, fled as far as Eilenburg. But 

 Gustavus Adolphus, who had beaten the left wing of the Imperialists, 

 under the command of Pappenheim, stopped the progress of Tilly, and 

 after a long and bloody struggle the imperial army was routed. When 

 Tilly saw the flight of his soldiers, he swore that he would not survive 

 the day on which he, the victor in thirty-six battles, was to fly for the 

 first time in his life. Alone on the field the old field-marshal, bleeding 

 from three wounds, shed tears of despair, and looked for death as his 

 only consolation. However Duke Rudolph of Saxe-Lauenburg per- 

 suaded him to withdraw ; and Tilly, putting himself at the head of 

 four regiments of veterans, fought his way through the main body of 

 the Swedish army. He narrowly escaped from the bold attack of a 

 Swedish captain, called ' Long-Fritz,' who was killed by a pistol-shot 



- BtOG. DIV. VOL. VI. 



at the moment when he was seizing the field-marshal (17th of Septem- 

 ber 1631). After the loss of the battle of Leipzig, fortune abandoned 

 Tilly for ever. Although he afterwards succeeded in driving the 

 Swedes from Franconia, Gustavus Adolphus compelled him to retire 

 beyond the Lech. In order to prevent the Swedes from penetrating 

 into Bavaria, Tilly took up a very strong position near Rain, on the 

 right bank of that river. Gustavus Adolphus, having arrived on the 

 left bank opposite Rain, opened a fire from all his batteries upon the 

 Bavarian camp, while his pontooniers endeavoured to construct a 

 bridge over the river (5th of April 1632). Tilly made a most active 

 resistance, but a ball broke his thigh, and he was removed from the 

 field and carried to Ingolstadt. After the fall of Tilly, the elector of 

 Bavaria abandoned his invincible position, and the Swedes crossed the 

 river. Tilly died on the day after the battle, in his seventy-third 

 year, without leaving any issue. 



Tilly was a little ugly man, with red hair, large whiskers, a pale 

 face, and piercing eyes. He continued to lead a monastic life in the 

 midst of the noise and the licence of his camp ; he boasted that he had 

 never touched wine nor women ; he spoke little, but thought much ; 

 he despised honours and money ; the emperor wished to confer the 

 duchy of Brunswick-Calenberg upon him, but Tilly refused it, and he 

 died poor. 



(Julius Bellus, Laurea Austriaca', Breyer, Geschichte des Dreissig- 

 jahriffen Krieges ; Schiller, Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges ; 

 Leo, Universal-Geschichte.) 



TIM^EUS (Tfytojos), the son of Andromachus, was born at Taurome- 

 nium in Sicily, whence he is sometimes called a Tauromenian, and 

 sometimes a Sicilian, to distinguish him from other persons of the 

 same name. The year of his birth was B.C. 352. He was a disciple of 

 Philiscus of Miletus, who had himself been instructed by Isocrates. 

 He was driven from his native country by Agathocles, the tyrant of 

 Syracuse, whereupon he went to Athens. This seems to have hap- 

 pened in B.C. 310, when Agathocles, after the battle of Himera, and 

 before taking his army over to Africa, confiscated under, various pre- 

 texts the property of his wealthy subjects, and endeavoured to secure 

 his possessions in Sicily by putting to death or sending into exile such 

 as he thought ill-disposed towards him. (Diodorus Siculus, xx. 4.) 

 Timseus spent fifty years at Athens in reading and studying, (Polybius, 

 xii. 25.) About B.C. 260, when Athens was taken by Antigonus, Timseus 

 returned to his native country, either to Tauromenium or to Syracuse, 

 where he spent the remainder of his life, and died (B.C. 256) at the 

 advanced age of ninety-six. 



Timseus wrote a great historical work, the main subject of which 

 was a history of Sicily. It began at the earliest times, and brought 

 the events down to Olympiad 129 (B.C. 264), where the work of Poly- 

 bius begins. (Polybius, i. 5.) How many books the history contained 

 is uncertain, though we know that there were more than forty. It 

 appears to have been divided into large sections, each of which formed 

 in itself a separate work, whence they are spoken of by several writers 

 as so many independent works. Thus one section bore the title of 

 St/ceAt/ca ;cal 'IraAi/ca, and contained the early history of Sicily in con- 

 nection with that of Italy ; another was called Sj/ceAwca KO.\ 'EAArji^Kcz, 

 and .contained the history of Sicily and Greece during the time of the 

 Athenian expeditions to Sicily. Another part again contained the 

 history of Agathocles ; and the last the history of Pyrrhus, especially 

 his campaigns in Italy and Sicily. This last section was, according to 

 the testimony of Cicero (' Ad. Fam.,' v. 12), a separate work, though, 

 as regards the period which it comprehended, it may be viewed as a 

 continuation of the great historical work. 



The history of Timacus, which, with the exception of a considerable 

 number of fragments, is now lost, was commenced by him during his 

 exile at Athens, and at a very advanced age, but he did not complete 

 it till after his return to his own country ; and it was here that he 

 added the history of the last years of the reign of Agathocles, and 

 wrote the history of Pyrrhus. As regards the character and value of 

 the work the ancients do not agree. Polybius is a vehement opponent 

 of Timseus, and complains of his ignoi-ance of political as well as mili- 

 tary affairs; he further states that Timseus made blunders in the 

 geography even of places and countries which he himself had visited. 

 His knowledge, he says, was altogether derived from books ; his judg- 

 ment was puerile ; and the whole work bore strong marks of credulity 

 and superstition. But this is not all that Polybius blames : he even 

 charges him with wilfully perverting the truth. The fondness which 

 Titnseus himself had for censuring others is said to have drawn upon 

 him the nickname of Epitimseus (' fault-finder'). (Athenceus, vi 272.) 

 Most parts of this severe criticism of Polybius may be perfectly just ; 

 but in regard to others we should remember that these two historians 

 wrote their works with such totally different views, that the work of 

 Timseus, who knew the world only from his books, must in many 

 respects have appeared absurd to the author of a ' pragmatical ' history, 

 and to a statesman and general like Polybius. But the loss of the 

 work of 'Timseus, even if he did no more than make an uncritical com- 

 pilation of what others had told before him, is one of the greatest in 

 ancient history. Other ancient writers, such as Diodorus, Agathar- 

 chides, Cicero, and others judge far more favourably of Timseus. The 

 style of the work, as far as we can judge from the fragments, is justly 

 censured by some ancient critics for its rhetorical and declamatory 

 character; although others, like Cicero ('De Orat.,'ii. 14; 'Brutus,' 95), 



