Greek Texts & Translations

Timon, says our ^note Apollonides of Nicaea in the first book of his commentaries On the Silli, which he dedicated to Tiberius Caesar, was the son of Timarchus and a native of Phlius. Losing his parents when young, he became a stage-dancer, but later took a dislike to that pursuit and went abroad to Megara to stay with Stilpo ; then after some time he returned home and married. After that he went to Pyrrho at Elis with his wife, and lived there until his children were born ; the elder of these he called Xanthus, taught him medicine, and made him his heir. 9.12.110 This son was a man of high repute, as we learn from Sotion in his eleventh book. Timon, however, found himself without means of support and sailed to the Hellespont and Propontis. Living now at Chalcedon as a sophist, he increased his reputation still further and, having made his fortune, went to Athens, where he lived until his death, except for a short period which he spent at Thebes. He was known to King Antigonus and to Ptolemy Philadelphus, as his own iambics ^note testify.

He was, according to Antigonus, fond of wine, and in the time that he could spare from philosophy he used to write poems. These included epics, tragedies, satyric dramas, thirty comedies and sixty tragedies, besides silli (lampoons) and obscene poems. 9.12.111 There are also reputed works of his extending to twenty thousand verses which are mentioned by Antigonus of Carystus, who also wrote his life. There are three silli in which, from his point of view as a Sceptic, he abuses every one and lampoons the dogmatic philosophers, using the form of parody. In the first he speaks in the first person throughout, the second and third are in the form of dialogues ; for he represents himself as questioning Xenophanes of Colophon about each philosopher in turn, while Xenophanes answers him ; in the second he speaks of the more ancient philosophers, in the third of the later, which is why some have entitled it the Epilogue. 9.12.112 The first deals with the same subjects, except that the poem is a monologue. It begins as follows ^note :

Ye sophists, ye inquisitives, come ! follow !

He died at the age of nearly ninety, so we learn from Antigonus and from Sotion in his eleventh book. I have heard that he had only one eye ; indeed he used to call himself a Cyclops. There was another Timon, the misanthrope. ^note

Now this philosopher, according to Antigonus, was very fond of gardens and preferred to mind his own affairs. At all events there is a story that Hieronymus the Peripatetic said of him, "Just as with the Scythians those who are in flight shoot as well as those who pursue, so, among philosophers, some catch their disciples by pursuing them, some by fleeing from them, as for instance Timon."

He was quick to perceive anything and to turn up his nose in scorn ; he was fond of writing and at all times good at sketching plots for poets and collaborating in dramas. He used to give the dramatists Alexander and Homer materials for their tragedies. ^note When disturbed by maidservants and dogs, he would stop writing, his earnest desire being to maintain tranquillity. Aratus is said to have asked him how he could obtain a trustworthy text of Homer, to which he replied, "You can, if you get hold of the ancient copies, and not the corrected copies of our day." He used to let his own poems lie about, sometimes half eaten away. 9.12.114 Hence, when he came to read parts of them to Zopyrus the orator, he would turn over the pages and recite whatever came handy ; then, when he was half through, he would discover the piece which he had been looking for in vain, so careless was he. ^note Furthermore, he was so easy-going that he would readily go without his dinner. They say that once, when he saw Arcesilaus passing through the "knaves-market," he said, "What business have you to come here, where we are all free men ?" He was constantly in the habit of quoting, to those who would admit the evidence of the senses when confirmed by the judgement of the mind, the line -

Birds of a feather flock together. ^note

Jesting in this fashion was habitual with him. When a man marvelled at everything, he said, "Why do you not marvel that we three have but four eyes between us ?" for in fact he himself had only one eye, as also had his disciple Dioscurides, while the man whom he addressed was normal.