TIMON the Sceptic, who is not to be confounded with Timon the Misanthrope, was a Phliasian, a disciple of Pyrro, and lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He took fo little pains to invite disciples to his school, that it has been said of him, that as the Scythians shot flying, Timon gained pupils by running from them. He was fond of rural retirement; and was fo much addicted to wine, that he had a successful contest with several celebrated champions in drinking. Like Lucian, he wrote with sarcastic humour againft the whole body of philosophers. The fragments of his satirical poem Silli, often quoted by the ancients, have been carefully collected by Henry Stephens in his Poems Philosophica. Timon lived to the age of 90 years.

Timon, furnamed Misanthrop, or the Man-hater, a famous Athenian, who lived about 420 B. C. He was one day asked, why he loved the young Alcibiades while he detested all the rest of the human race? on which he replied, "It is because I foresee that he will be the ruin of the Athenians." He carefully avoided all sorts of company; yet went one day to an assembly of the people, and cried with a loud voice, "That he had a fig-tree on which several persons had hanged themselves; themselves; but as he intended to cut it down, in order to build a house on the place where it stood, he gave them notice of it, that if any of them had a mind to hang themselves, they must make haste and do it speedily." He had an epitaph engraved on his tomb, filled with imprecations against those who read it. Shakespeare has formed a tragedy on his story.