An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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  • NEWS October 2024

    NEWS October 2024

    OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
  • Joining The Dots

    Joining The Dots

    I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
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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 *