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Flavius serves as Timon’s steward, so his job is to oversee the domestic economy of Timon’s estate. He is thus the one responsible for balancing the accounts and thereby ensuring Timon’s financial stability. Given that his master is a reckless spender who is generous to a fault, Flavius has a very difficult job indeed. As he struggles to inform Timon of his dire financial straits, Flavius also endeavors to fend off the estate’s imminent bankruptcy—but to no avail. He only manages to inform Timon of his situation when it’s already too late. Flavius’s trials mark him from the very beginning as a figure whose concern for Timon’s well-being is genuine. He also inherits something of his master’s generosity, as he demonstrates when he finds Timon’s cave in the woods and, weeping, attempts to gift him his last-remaining gold. At this point, Timon, who has otherwise committed himself to cursing all of humankind, recognizes his former steward as the world’s “singly honest man” (4.3.521). In the end, even though others are genuinely concerned with Timon’s well-being, it is Flavius who reveals himself as his master’s one true friend.
