Alcibiades by Agostino Veneziano (ca. 1490-1540): Timon.

During the course of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades changed his political allegiance on several occasions. In his native Athens in the early 410s BC, he advocated an aggressive foreign policy, and was a prominent proponent of the Sicilian Expedition, but fled to Sparta after his political enemies brought charges of sacrilege against him. In Sparta, he served as a strategic adviser, proposing or supervising several major campaigns against Athens. In Sparta too, however, Alcibiades soon made powerful enemies and was forced to defect to Persia. There he served as an adviser to the satrap Tissaphernes until his Athenian political allies brought about his recall. He then served as an Athenian General (Strategos) for several years, but his enemies eventually succeeded in exiling him a second time.

Shakespeare uses Alcibiades because he is a critic of Athens like Timon, indeed he has much in common with Coriolanus, about whom Shakespeare was also concerned at this time, because Alcibiades on several occasions fought against his native city. He was also a pupil of the subversive Socrates as Plato illustrates in this Symposium, and was a fluent orator apt for his role in the play.

Picture and data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia)