Critias (Narrator)

Critias is the name of at least two and possibly as many as four people connected with Plato’s Atlantis story, a detail that has led to some confusion and persistent debate among scholars^(c). First of all there is Critias₁ who actually takes part in the dialogues and relates the Atlantis story to Socrates. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an extensive article on the historical Critias^(b).

Critias₂ was the grandfather of the Critias₁ in the dialogues, who is supposedly one of the Thirty Tyrants who controlled Athens in 404 BC. This elder Critias conveyed the tale of Atlantis to his grandson, Critias₁, who in turn told it to Socrates in the Dialogues. Critias₂ was also Plato’s maternal great grandfather.

Bernard Suzanne discusses the question of the identity of Critias in detail on his website^(a) as does Phyllis Young Forsyth^[266.42-44]

>In his contribution to Edwin Ramage‘s Atlantis: Fact or Fiction? ^[522]  J. V. Luce, the Irish classical scholar, added an appendix in which he briefly reviewed the controversy surrounding the identity of the narrator of Critias. He had previously considered Critias IV, the Tyrant (c.460-403 BC) to have been the narrator, but then (1978) he was convinced that it was Critias III, grandfather of the ‘tyrant’ and great-grandfather of Plato. Now, nearly half a century later this debate rumbles on as can be seen on the relevant Wikipedia page^(d).<

^(a) https://www.plato-dialogues.org

^(b) https://www.iep.utm.edu/critias/

^(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critias_(dialogue)

^(d) Critias (dialogue) – Wikipedia *