Critias

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

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.^[1][2]

According to Polybius, he asserted that "religion was a deliberate imposture devised by some cunning man for political ends."^[3]

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.^[4]

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

• List of speakers in Plato's dialogues

Citations

1. Buck, Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy, pp. 71–79
2. Xenophon, Hellenica 2.4
3. Polybius: The Rise Of The Roman Empire, Penguin, 1979. p. 25.
4. Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, III:1

References

• Davies, J. K. (1971). Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 BC. London: Oxford University Press.
• Nails, D. (2002). The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing.
• Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. (1949). "The Family of Critias". American Journal of Philology (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 70 (4): 404–410. doi:10.2307/291107. JSTOR 291107.

External links

• Critias entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Fragments of Critias of Athens
• Excerpt from the Sisyphus (original Ancient Greek text) (Greek)