| Timaeus 'Makedonos' of Aigai |
Nicknames: 'Makedonos' ('the tall/high one')
Age: 52 (born 375 BC)
Family:
Apollonia (wife, age 49)
Berenice (daughter, age 28)
Laodice (daughter, age 23)
Demetrius (son, age 18, see below)
Born to an undistinguished Macedonian metal-worker in the former royal capital of Aigai in 372 BC, Timaeus did not at first seem to be destined for greatness; his huge and brawny figure made him a prime candidate for a front-line soldier, but not even he expected to rise any higher than a low-ranking officer in the infantry. That all changed as he won renown for himself by felling many enemies, saving the lives of his comrades and (as he steadily climbed the ranks) flawlessly executing the orders of his superiors on the battlefield over a 30+ year career that began when he first joined the Macedonian army in time for the Battle of Erigon Valley against the Illyrians, 358 BC. Philip II first took notice of him at the conclusion of the Olynthian War of the early 340s BC, where again his conduct was exemplary, and by the time of the Battle of Chaeronea he had become a high-ranking phalanx officer (and again he acquitted himself nobly in the fighting against the Theban phalanx there). Due to his humble birth Timaeus was never made one of the Somatophylakes nor did he play a notable role at the Macedonian court, but he did win the confidence of both Philip and his son Alexander through his loyalty and capability to execute any orders he was given quite successfully, and from 334 onward he accompanied Alexander as a full Strategos in his Persian campaigns out east.
Timaeus was present from the Battles of the Granicus and Issus; to the great Siege of Tyre, where he was one of the first men off of the siege towers; at Gaza, where he received a distinctive scar across his cheek while leading the assault on the city; and finally at Gaugamela, where he successfully directed his section of the phalanx to open up and allow the Persian scythe-chariots to storm through harmlessly. He then fought across Persia proper with Alexander, participating at the Persian Gates and finally at Jaxartes. After Jaxartes, Alexander assigned him to govern Judea & Samaria in his absence, and Timaeus played no further role in the final conquest of the eastern half of the Achaemenid Empire. In Judea he found himself in the company of the native Jews, whose monotheistic religion and native customs he found odd - but as Alexander's orders to him were literally to 'keep the peace' and not 'enforce Hellenic customs & our pantheon on them no matter the cost', he was careful to accommodate their demands and allow them to worship their God in peace so long as they remained loyal - just as the Persians had. These Jews in turn, at least those among them who could speak his tongue, simply called him 'Makedonos' or 'the tall/high one', both after his great size and strength as well as due to his ethnicity. As Alexander lay dying in 323 BC, Timaeus rushed to his side and finally mourned once the great man had drawn his last breath, even though he did not know the King half as well as some of his other companions; for he was the finest soldier the old man had ever served under and was responsible for finishing his transformation from the nobody son of a nobody metal-worker into a noteworthy general and territorial governor. At the Partition of Babylon he was allowed to hold on to his Judean domains.
Timaeus is a simple man, some even dare say brutish. He does not like to speak a lot, and is no rhetorician; he is wonderful at firing up his soldiers before battle with blunt, short but effective wartime speeches, but should not be expected to debate or persuade in the eloquent way of the Greek orators. Under Alexander, he was noted to be more than capable of executing any order given to him, but showed little initiative of his own on a strategic scale. That said, he is no fool and possesses a mind for both military planning and peacetime administration, nor is he pointlessly cruel. He may have little interest in the culture and faith of his new Jewish subjects, but he allows them to practice their customs anyway, and is not at all perturbed by his only son's interest in their ways either. Finally, his loyalty does shine in an area outside of warfare as well - to date he has been faithful to his wife Apollonia, a Macedonian woman of low birth who he married before he rose up the social ladder, and has refused to take other wives or concubines (though he has occasionally dallied with prostitutes while far-removed from her) even when it could have been advantageous to him.
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| Demetrius, son of Timaeus |
Nicknames: None
Age: 18 (born 341 BC)
Demetrius is the polar opposite of his old man - though quite tall and brawny, he is sharper-eyed and thus far beardless. Fancying himself a philosopher in the making, Demetrius has jumped headfirst into the scholarly pursuits Timaeus completely ignored, and has done much to ingratiate himself with the elite of Judea where he's spent the better half of his life to date. He is no warrior, but possesses a sharp mind for both strategy and philosophy, and has studied the Greek classics - rhetoric, grammar, arithmetic, medicine, the various liberal arts as taught by the ancients - in addition to military manuals while at the same time opening his mind to Jewish customs and thought. The latter has given his devout mother cause for worry, as Demetrius is more than a little fascinated with Judaism and ceaselessly pesters their priests and prophets over the nature of God, the history of the Jewish people and more recently, how one can become a Jew and what it takes to court a Jewish girl. |
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Jerusalem, the City of Peace
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Originally Posted by Barry Goldwater
