A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. A Lacedaemonian, was a confidential officer of Harpalus, the Macedonian satrap of Babylon under Alexander the Great. According to one account it was Thimbron who murdered Harpalus in Crete, in B. C. 324. [HARPALUS, No. 1.] He then possessed himself of his late master's treasures, fleet, and army, and, ostensibly espousing the cause of some Cyrenaean exiles, sailed to Cyrene with the intention of subjugating it. He defeated the Cyrenaeans in a battle, obtained possession of their harbour, Apollonia, together with the treasures he found there, and compelled them to capitulate on condition of paying him 500 talents, and supplying him with half of their warchariots for his expeditions. This agreement, however, they were soon induced to repudiate by Mnasicles, one of Thimbron's officers, who had deserted his standard, and gone over to the enemy. Under the able direction of Mnasicles, the Cyrenaeans recovered Apollonia, and, though Thimbron was aided by the Barcaeans and Hesperians, and succeeded in taking the town of Teucheira, yet, on the whole, his fortunes declined, and he met besides with a severe disaster in the loss of a great number of his men, who were slain or captured by the enemy, and in the almost total destruction of his fleet by a storm. Not discouraged, however, he collected reinforcements from the Peloponnesus, defeated the Cyrenaeans (who were now aided by the Libyans and Carthaginians), and closely besieged Cyrene. Pressed by scarcity, the citizens quarrelled among themselves, and the chiefs of the

oligarchical party, being driven out, betook themselves parly to Ptolemy Largi, king of Egypt, and partly to Thimbron. Ptolemy thereupon sent a large force against Cyrene under Ophellas, to whom the exiles, who had taken refuge with Thimbron, endeavoured to escape, but were detected, and put to death. The Cyrenaean people then made common cause with Thimbron against the new invader ; but Ophellas defeated him, and he was obliged to seek safety in flight. He fell, however, into the hands of some Libyans, and was by them oblivered up to Epicydes, an Olynthian, whom Ophellas, leaving taken Teucheira, had made governor of the town. The citizens of Teucheira, with the sanction of Opheallas, sent Thimbron to Apollonia, the scene of much of his violence and extortion, to be crucified, B. C. 322. (Diod. 17.108, 18.19_21; Arr. apud Plot. cod. 92; Strab. xvii. p.837; Just. 13.6, 8; Oros. 3.23.)

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