Timaeus of Tauromenium, whose work reached a wide diffusion in Hellenistic times but fell away in the Roman period, is quoted 18 times by Plutarch. The proem of the "Life of Nicias" is, no doubt, the more revealing of all these quotations. The poem, literally a harsh criticism of Timaeus, contains also a hidden message. In it Plutarch recognizes the influence exerted by the Hellenistic historian in the design of his biography of Nicias
