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Gold
Perhaps the most important and ubiquitous symbol in Timon of Athens is gold. Virtually everything in the play revolves around this substance: “Yellow, glittering, precious gold” (4.3.26). It’s what enables Timon’s extravagant generosity at the beginning of the play, but it’s also what leads to his downfall when he runs out of it and can’t secure a loan for more. Gold has a seemingly magical ability to draw fawning flatterers, yet its value is also suspect, since the attention it draws is shallow, rooted in self-interest and greed. Ultimately, it is gold’s negative qualities that most define its symbolic significance in the play, where it reduces people to their basest and most material desires. This is what Timon concludes when he decries the corrupting power of gold, which he refers to variously as a “yellow slave” (4.3.34), “damned earth” (42), and the “common whore of mankind” (43). This last expression links gold to prostitution, suggesting that people—much like the “harlots” Phrynia and Timandra—are ever eager to “whore” themselves for more of it: “Well, more gold! What then? / Believe’t that we’ll do anything for gold” (4.3.149–50). Symbolically, then, gold is fundamentally corrupting.
Roots
Roots appear in Timon of Athens as a symbolic counterpoint to gold and its corrupting influence. The initial reference to roots comes during the scene of Timon’s first feast. Apemantus has refused to accept any of the meat Timon has prepared, so he appears not to be eating anything at all. Even so, he says his own personal “grace” before the meal, and as he concludes, he declares: “Rich men sin, and I eat root” (1.2.69). Here, “root” appears as a symbol of virtuous abstention from what Apemantus earlier referred to as a kind of cannibalism, as wealthy lords gather to “eat” Timon and “dip their meat in [his] blood” (1.2.39). Roots carry a similar meaning in act 4, scene 3. There, Timon is digging around in the ground looking for roots to eat, when he happens to unearth a bag of gold. The irony here is potent: gold presents itself just when he no longer needs it and after he’s renounced the corrupting power of riches. Frustrated, he goes on searching for roots—a humble form of sustenance that symbolically marks his renunciation of all material wealth.
Stone Soup
When Timon faces imminent bankruptcy and none of his peers will lend him money, he decides to host one last banquet to honor his so-called friends. Before the meal begins, he delivers a speech that begins with him giving thanks to the gods. By the end of the speech, however, his tone shifts, and he declares that none of the individuals present at this feast are deserving of thanks—they are all “nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are they welcome” (3.6.84–85). Then, with a cruel invitation—“Uncover, dogs, and lap” (86)—he has his servants uncover the dishes and reveal the feast he’s prepared: a soup consisting of “warm water and stones” (SD 3.6.86). This stone soup, devoid of all taste or nutrition, offers a powerful expression of the emptiness of his guests’ friendship. Timon makes this symbolism plain when he declares, “May you a better feast never behold, / You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water / Is your perfection” (3.6.88–90). Yet on another level, the clear bitterness of Timon’s words also indicates that he has come to the end of his generosity. In this sense, the stone soup symbolizes Timon’s transformation from philanthropist to misanthropist.
