Critias

For the work by Plato, see Critias (dialogue).

Critias (/ˈkrɪtiəs/; Greek: Κριτίας, Kritias; c. 460 – 403 BCE) was an ancient Athenian political figure and author. Born in Athens, Critias was the son of Callaeschrus and a first cousin of Plato's mother Perictione, and became a leading and violent member of the Thirty Tyrants. He was an associate of Socrates, a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public.

Critias was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose works. Some, like Sextus Empiricus, believe that Critias wrote the Sisyphus fragment; others, however, attribute it to Euripides. His only known play is Peirithous, of which only a single 42-line fragment survives (Sextus Empir. p. 403, 1). In addition, eight shorter quotations from unidentified plays have come down to us.

Life

Critias gave an account of his ancestry which was later recorded in Plato's Timaeus. Critias's great-grandfather, Dropidas, was an intimate friend of Solon. Dropidas's son, also named Critias, is the grandfather and namesake of the author Critias.[1]

Critias was once a student of Socrates. The two had a strained relationship when it came to personal discussions, however, it is said that Critias was the one who saved Socrates from persecution during the terror of the Thirty Tyrants.[2]

After the fall of Athens to the Spartans, Critias, as one of the Thirty Tyrants, blacklisted many of its citizens. Most of his prisoners were executed and their wealth confiscated.

Critias was killed in a battle near Piraeus, the port of Athens, between a band of pro-democracy Athenian exiles led by Thrasybulus and members and supporters of the Thirty, aided by the Spartan garrison. In the battle, the exiles put the oligarchic forces to flight, ending the rule of the Thirty.[3][4]

According to Polybius, he asserted that "religion was a deliberate imposture devised by some cunning man for political ends."[5]

Plato's description

Critias appears as a character in Plato's dialogues Charmides and Protagoras, and, according to Diogenes Laërtius, was Plato's great-uncle.[6]

The Critias character in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias is often identified as the son of Callaeschrus – but not by Plato. Given the old age of the Critias in these two dialogues, he may be the grandfather of the son of Callaeschrus.

In popular culture

A generally unflattering portrait of Critias is created throughout Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, a retelling of Athens' last years in the Peloponnesian War and its immediate aftermath.

See also

Citations

  1. ↑ Jowett, Benjamin (1892). The dialogues of Plato. Vol. II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Timaeus. P.516-517. Critias: Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale which is, however certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and a great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and told us: That there were of old great and marvellous actions of the Athenians, which have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction of the human race, and one in particular, which was the greatest of them all [...]
  2. ↑ http://www.iep.utm.edu/critias/#H4
  3. ↑ Buck, Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy, pp. 71–79
  4. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenica 2.4
  5. ↑ Polybius: The Rise Of The Roman Empire, Penguin, 1979. p. 25.
  6. ↑ Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, III:1

References

External links

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