PYTHAGOREAN WRITINGS. 527 



Thus then the account has already gained in proba- 

 bility, that Plato's Timaeus is formed from a pythago- 

 ric writing, though it even mould have been given us 

 by an author not very credible in himfelf. But if this 

 account proceeds from an author more antient and 

 credible than Cicero ; if it even be tranfmitted to hin> 

 fucceffively by the followers of Plato ; then fcarcely 

 anv dowbt can remain of its hiftorical certainty. 



This older and more credible author is the fyllo- 

 grapher Timon, who lived in the time of Ptolemy 

 Philadelphus, confequently not very long after Plato ; 

 who confequently fetched this account from antient 

 and uncorrupted fources. The fyllographer Timon, 

 who, as the common foe to all that were not pyrrho- 

 nifts, could neither conceal nor difguife the truth, 

 without rendering himfelf univerfally ridiculous and 

 contemptible. 



Thefe followers of Plato, repeated by Timon, in his 

 account, are Proclus and Jamblichus, who both affirm 

 that they found it in Timon, and prove what they 

 affirm by citing the very words of Timon. The for- 

 mer exprefTes himfelf in the following manner : The 

 work on nature, by Timon the pythagorean, is com- 

 pofed in the pythagoric manner; from it Plato learnt, 

 according to the account of the fyllographer, to corn- 

 pole his Timaeus ; this book' I have prefixed to my 

 commentary, that it may be feen, where Plato's Ti^ 

 maeus agrees with him, what he has added of his own, 

 and where he deviates from him # . The latter fpeaks 

 as follows : Timaeus of Locri (who, as it is reported, 



* * Proclus in Timseum Platonis. 



occafioned. 



