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Updated: May 31, 2025
Had Plato lived to finish the Critias, a comparison between that noble fiction and the new Atlantis would probably have furnished us with still more striking instances than any which we have given.
But then what profit, Critias, I said, is there any longer in wisdom or temperance which yet remains, if this is wisdom?
Who would desire better evidence than that of Critias, who had heard the narrative in youth when the memory is strongest at the age of ten from his grandfather Critias, an old man of ninety, who in turn had heard it from Solon himself?
“ ‘He?’ Whom do you mean?” “It’s not overeasy to tell, kyrie. He calls himself Critias, and wears a long black beard and tangled hair. Phormio brought him home one evening—said he was the prōreus of a Melian trireme caulking at Epidaurus, but was once in the fish trade at Peiræus and an old friend. I told Phormio we had enough these days to fill our own bellies, but my husband would be hospitable.
Lysander established in most of the cities an oligarchy of ten citizens, as well as a Spartan harmost, or governor. Everywhere the Lysandrian dekarchy superseded the previous governments, and ruled oppressively, like the Thirty at Athens, with Critias at their head. And no justice could be obtained at Sparta against the bad conduct of the harmosts who now domineered in every city.
TIMAEUS: I quite approve. CRITIAS: Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us.
Here Critias, interrupting their discourse, said: "For the future, Socrates, you must have nothing to do with the city tradesmen, the shoemakers, masons, smiths, and other mechanics, whom you so often allege as examples of life; and who, I apprehend, are quite jaded with your discourses."
He is as fair and good within, as he is without, replied Critias. Then, before we see his body, should we not ask him to show us his soul, naked and undisguised? he is just of an age at which he will like to talk. That he will, said Critias, and I can tell you that he is a philosopher already, and also a considerable poet, not in his own opinion only, but in that of others.
Thus, whilst Alcibiades and Critias conversed with Socrates, they were able, with so great an assistance, to tame their inclinations; but after they had left him, Critias, being retired into Thessaly, ruined himself entirely in the company of some libertines; and Alcibiades, seeing himself courted by several women of quality, because of his beauty, and suffering himself to be corrupted by soothing flatterers, who made their court to him, in consideration of the credit he had in the city and with the allies; in a word, finding himself respected by all the Athenians, and that no man disputed the first rank with him, began to neglect himself, and acted like a great wrestler, who takes not the trouble to exercise himself, when he no longer finds an adversary who dares to contend with him.
I took the place which he assigned to me, by the side of Critias the son of Callaeschrus, and when I had saluted him and the rest of the company, I told them the news from the army, and answered their several enquiries. Then, when there had been enough of this, I, in my turn, began to make enquiries about matters at home about the present state of philosophy, and about the youth.
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