Critias was an ancient Athenianpolitical figure and author. Born in Athens, Critias was the son of Callaeschrus and a first cousin of Plato's mother Perictione. He became a leading and violent member of the Thirty Tyrants. He also 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. In addition, eight shorter quotations from unidentified plays have come down to us.
Life
Critias gave an account of his ancestry which was later recorded in Plato's Timaeus. Critias's great-grandfather, Dropidas, was an intimate friend of Solon. Dropidas's son, also named Critias, was the grandfather and namesake of the author Critias. Critias was once a student of Socrates. The two had a strained relationship. However, it is said that Critias was the one who saved Socrates from persecution during the terror of the Thirty Tyrants. However, Critias was very greedy, something that Socrates did not approve of. After the fall of Athens to the Spartans, Critias, as one of the Thirty Tyrants, blacklisted many of its citizens. Most of his prisoners were executed and their wealth confiscated. Critias was killed in a battle near Piraeus, the port of Athens, between a band of pro-democracy Athenian exiles led by Thrasybulus and members and supporters of the Thirty, aided by the Spartan garrison. In the battle, the exiles put the oligarchic forces to flight, ending the rule of the Thirty. According to Sextus Empiricus, Critias asserted that "a shrewd and clever-minded man invented for mortals a fear of the gods, so that there might be a deterrent for the wicked..." The text from which this excerpt originates is known both as the Critias fragment and the Sisyphus fragment as its origins are disputed. Most historians attribute the quotation to the character of Sisyphus in a play by Euripides.
Critias appears as a character in Plato's dialoguesCharmides and Protagoras, and, according to Diogenes Laërtius, was Plato's great-uncle. The Critias character in Plato's dialoguesTimaeus and Critias is often identified as the son of Callaeschrus – but not by Plato. Given the old age of the Critias in these two dialogues, he may be the grandfather of the son of Callaeschrus.
A generally unflattering portrait of Critias is provided in Mary Renault's historical novelThe Last of the Wine, a retelling of Athens' last years in the Peloponnesian War and its immediate aftermath.
Likewise in Alessandro Barbero's historical novelLe Ateniesi, another tale set in the latter years of the Peloponnesian War.
