What is "critias"

Critias (; , 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.

Critias (; ), one of Plato's late dialogues, contains the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians. Critias is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, preceded by Timaeus and followed by Hermocrates. The latter was possibly never written and Critias was left incomplete. Because of their resemblance (e.g. in terms of persons appearing), modern classicists occasionally combine both Timaeus and Critias as Timaeus-Critias.