The Project Gutenberg eBook of Critias
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Title: Critias
Author: Plato
Translator: Benjamin Jowett
Release date: December 1, 1998 [eBook #1571]
Most recently updated: August 15, 2008
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1571
Credits: Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger
Produced by Sue Asscher
CRITIAS
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
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. Th…