Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Friends, Lords, and Senators; Timon

Friends, Lords, and Senators: It's easy to see that Timon's friends (Lucius, Lucullus, Ventidius, Sempronius, Isidore, Varro) and the Lords and Senators he invites to his banquets are moochers. They're in it for the money, the food, and the gifts—and nothing else. When Timon needs money, all of them flat-out refuse him. They seem like bad people, and we love to hate them, so it's pretty clear that they're antagonists.

Timon:Timon, however, is his own worst enemy. Sure, his friends are the ones who deny him the moolah, but he's the one who puts himself in that situation to begin with: he loves his friends and his lifestyle so much that he becomes blind to what is really going on.

At the banquet, he declares: "O, what a precious comfort 'tis, to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes!" (1.2.101-102). We couldn't have put it better ourselves: Timon allows his friends to take charge ("command") of his money and is ruined when they don't step up to help him. They might be greedy and cruel, but he's naive and overindulgent. We're just saying.