Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Timon of Athens

TIMON of Athens, a noted misanthrope, lived during the Peloponnesian War. He is more than once alluded to by Aristophanes and other comedians of the Attic stage. Plutarch takes occasion to introduce a short account of his life in the biography of Mark Antony (ch. 70), and he gives his name to one of Lucian's dialogues. Shakespeare probably derived his knowledge of Timon mainly from Plutarch; but the Timon of Shakespeare resembles the Timon of Lucian in so many points that some critics think Shakespeare (or whoever wrote the first sketch of the play) must have had access to the dialogue in question.