Information AboutCritias |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT CRITIAS | |
| 460 bc births | |
| 403 bc deaths | |
| ancient athenians | |
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Critias (460-403 BC), son of Callaeschrus, was the uncle of Plato , leading member of the Thirty Tyrants , and one of the most violent. He was an associate of Socrates', a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public. He was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose works. From his '' Sisyphus '' a fragment has been preserved in which he declares faith in the gods to be merely a clever device for holding the masses in check; but as no one would dare to make such a statement before an Athenian audience, the piece was probably intended only for private reading — unless the quote was dialogue for the notoriously impious Sisyphus himself. Critias appears as a character in Plato's dialogues Charmides and Protagoras . The Critias character in Plato's Timaeus and Critias is often identified as the son of Callaeschrus - but ''not'' by Plato; and given the old age of the Critias in these two dialogues, he must be the ''grandfather'' of the son of Callaeschrus. |
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