In antiquity, Timaeus's historical existence was beyond dispute. Cicero reports that Plato traveled to Italy to study with Timaeus and other Pythagoreans. The report of this meeting led Macrobius, a writer of late antiquity, to conclude that Timaeus could not have been in a face-to-face dialogue with Socrates, who, by Timaeus's time, was long dead. Iamblichus lists Timaeus among the notable members of the Pythagorean school. Diogenes Laërtius in his "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers", suggests that the character of Timaeus was based on the Pythagorean Philolaus. Further references to Timaeus are found in Proclus, "Commentary on Plato's Timaeus" (II, 38, I); in commentaries on Aristotle by Simplicius; and in Porphyry, where Timaeus mentions the house of Pythagoras in Croton.