Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Critias
    Critias
    Critias
    Ebook57 pages45 minutes

    Critias

    By Benjamin Jowett and Plato

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013

    Read more from Benjamin Jowett

    Related authors

    Related to Critias

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Lost ATLANTIS

      Jul 1, 2022

      Lost ATLANTIS
      1 min read

    • Article

      Greek Knowledge Of The Scythians

      Dec 8, 2023

      Greek Knowledge Of The Scythians
      8 min read

    • Article

      Classical Corner

      Jul 14, 2022

      Classical Corner
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Hunt For Atlantis

      Jun 16, 2022

      The Hunt For Atlantis
      8 min read

    • Article

      Twin cities

      Dec 2, 2022

      Twin cities
      10 min read

    • Article

      Plato Goes To Syracuse

      Aug 4, 2023

      In the spring of 384 BC Plato was on his way home from Syracuse, the greatest Greek city in Sicily. He had left Athens the previous year for an extended visit to southern Italy and Sicily. Several ancient biographers tell us that at least one of his

      6 min read

    • Article

      History’s Greatest Mysteries

      May 14, 2020

      History’s Greatest Mysteries
      36 min read

    • Article

      Borderland: Europe’s Eastern faultline

      Nov 26, 2020

      THE OLD MAN LOOKS PAST MY SHOULDER and off into the distance. His face is smooth, the nose is beakishly angular and classically Greek. The eyes, which are almost expressionless, transmit an imperturbable patrician confidence, and they are shaded in d

      13 min read

    • Article

      Across The Wine-dark Sea

      Nov 23, 2021

      Across The Wine-dark Sea
      6 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      Oct 1, 2020

      Here’s a summer tale for an autumn day - a sailor’s yarn. I’m writing this in an old shipping office in Amorgos in the Cyclades; along the quay a few yachts with rattling halyards, a fisherman cleaning his nets and washing the deck of his caique. On

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Chremonidean War

      Jan 24, 2022

      In the Athenian year 269/8, they saw their opportunity. Since the mid-270s, Macedon had been ruled by Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes. Ever since Antigonus came to the throne, Greek opposition to his rule had been fostered and fun

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Philistine Age

      Jun 11, 2022

      The Philistine Age
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Power of Pergamon

      Dec 2, 2023

      The Power of Pergamon
      10 min read

    • Article

      Death Within The Walls

      Jan 24, 2023

      Death Within The Walls
      10 min read

    • Article

      Battle Of Salamis

      Feb 27, 2020

      Battle Of Salamis
      8 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      Mar 19, 2020

      I recently went up to the wet and windy Lancashire coast, with trains disrupted by floods beyond Preston, to talk to the wonderful Lytham St Annes Classical Association. It’s the biggest branch of the Classical Association in the UK, with almost 600

      3 min read

    • Article

      Making Athens Great Again

      Mar 11, 2017

      Making Athens Great Again
      13 min read

    • Article

      Professor Edith Hall

      Nov 5, 2020

      Edith Hall is professor in the Classics Department at King’s Collect London, specialising in Ancient Greek literature and cultural history. She has published several books including Aristotle’s Way: Ten Ways Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (The B

      4 min read

    • Article

      Kolaios

      Aug 24, 2021

      Kolaios
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ancient World

      Dec 21, 2023

      Ancient World
      7 min read

    • Article

      Salamis

      Nov 26, 2020

      Salamis
      8 min read

    • Article

      Magna Graecia

      Feb 14, 2022

      Magna Graecia
      6 min read

    • Article

      An Athenian Aegean

      Oct 6, 2023

      An Athenian Aegean
      5 min read

    Reviews for Critias

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Critias - Benjamin Jowett

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Critias, by Plato

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Critias

      Author: Plato

      Translator: Benjamin Jowett

      Release Date: August 15, 2008 [EBook #1571]

      Last Updated: January 15, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITIAS ***

      Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger

      CRITIAS

      by Plato

      Translated by Benjamin Jowett

      Contents

      INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

      The Critias is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. It was designed to be the second part of a trilogy, which, like the other great Platonic trilogy of the Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher, was never completed. Timaeus had brought down the origin of the world to the creation of man, and the dawn of history was now to succeed the philosophy of nature. The Critias is also connected with the Republic. Plato, as he has already told us (Tim.), intended to represent the ideal state engaged in a patriotic conflict. This mythical conflict is prophetic or symbolical of the struggle of Athens and Persia, perhaps in some degree also of the wars of the Greeks and Carthaginians, in the same way that the Persian is prefigured by the Trojan war to the mind of Herodotus, or as the narrative of the first part of the Aeneid is intended by Virgil to foreshadow the wars of Carthage and Rome. The small number of the primitive Athenian citizens (20,000), 'which is about their present number' (Crit.), is evidently designed to contrast with the myriads and barbaric array of the Atlantic hosts. The passing remark in the Timaeus that Athens was left alone in the struggle, in which she conquered and became the liberator of Greece, is also an allusion to the later history. Hence we may safely conclude that the entire narrative is due to the imagination of Plato, who has used the name of Solon and introduced the Egyptian priests to give verisimilitude to his story. To the Greek such a tale, like that of the earth-born men, would have seemed perfectly accordant with the character of his mythology, and not more marvellous than the wonders of the East narrated by Herodotus and others: he might have been deceived into believing it. But it appears strange that later ages should have been imposed upon by the fiction. As many attempts have been made to find the great island of Atlantis, as to discover the country of the lost tribes. Without regard to the description of Plato, and without a suspicion that the whole narrative is a fabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot in every part of the globe, America, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Palestine, Sardinia, Sweden.

      Timaeus concludes with a prayer that his words may be acceptable to the God whom he has revealed, and Critias, whose turn follows, begs that a larger measure of indulgence may be conceded to him, because he has to speak of men whom we know and not of gods whom we do not know. Socrates readily grants his request, and anticipating that Hermocrates will make a similar petition, extends by anticipation a like indulgence to him.

      Critias returns to his story, professing only to repeat what Solon was told by the priests. The war of which he was about to speak had occurred 9000 years ago. One of the combatants was the city of Athens, the other was the great island of Atlantis. Critias proposes to speak of these rival powers first of all, giving to Athens the precedence; the various tribes of Greeks and barbarians who took part in the war will be dealt with as they successively appear on

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1