(Τίμων).
1. The son of Timarchus of Phlius, a philosopher of the sect of the Sceptics, and a celebrated writer of the species of satiric poems called Silli (σίλλοι), flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about B. C. 279, and onwards. A pretty full account of his life is preserved by Diogenes Laertius, from the first book of a work on the Silli (ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ τῶν εἰς τοὺς σίλλους ὑπομνηάτων) by Apollonides of Nicaea ; and some particulars are quoted by Diogenes from Antigonus of Carystus, and from Sotion (D. L. 9.12. §§ 109-115). Being left an orphan while still young, he was at first a choreutes in the theatre, but he abandoned this profession for the study of philosophy, and, having removed to Megara, he spent some time with Stilpon, and then he returned home and married. He next went to Elis with his wife, and heard Pyrrhon, whose tenets he adopted, so far at least as his restless genius and satirical scepticism permitted him to follow any master. During his residence at Elis, he had children born to him, the eldest of whom, named Xanthus, he instructed in the art of medicine and trained in his philosophical principles, so that he might be his successor and representative (καὶ διάδοχον βίου κατέλιπε; but these words may, however, mean that he left him heir to his property). Driven again from Elis by straitened circumstances, he spent some time on the Hellespont and the Propontis, and taught at Chalcedon as a sophist with such success that he realised a fortune. He then removed to Athens, where he lived until his death, with the exception of a short residence at Thebes. Among the great men, with whom he became personally acquainted in the course of his travels, which probably extended more widely about the Aegean and the Levant than we are informed, were the kings Antigonus and Ptolemy Philadelphus. He is said to have assisted Alexander Aetolus and Homerus in the composition of their tragedies, and to have been the teacher of Aratus (Suid. s. v. Ἄραγος). " These indications," says Mr. Clinton, " mark his time. He might have heard Stilpo at Megara twenty-five years before the reign of Philadelphus" (Fast. Hellen. vol. iii. s. aa. 279, 272). He died at the age of almost ninety. Among his pupils were Dioscurides of Cyprus, Nicolochus of Rhodes, Euphranor of Seleuceia, and Praÿlus of the Troad.
Timon appears to have been endowed by nature with a powerful and active mind, and with that quick perception of the follies of men, which betrays its possessor into a spirit of universal distrust both of men and truths, so as to make him a sceptic in philosophy and a satirist in every thing. According to Diogenes, Timon had that physical defect, which some have fancied that they have found often accompanied by such a spirit as his, and which at least must have given greater force to its utterances; he was a one-eyed man; and he used even to make a jest of his own defect, calling himself Cyclops. Some other examples of his bitter sarcasms are recorded by Diogenes; one of which is worth qoting as a maxim in criticism : being asked by Aratus how to obtain the pure text of Homer, he replied, " If we could find the old copies, and not those with modern emendations." He is also said to have been fond of retirement, and of gardening; but Diogenes introduces this statement and some others in such a way as to suggest a doubt whether they ought to be referred