Critias
historical figure · 10 works · 11 mentions · 26 anchored passages
Critias of the Thirty Tyrants · one of the Thirty · the fair Critias
in the texts
Hellenica
Leading member of the Thirty, chief architect of the oligarchy's violent policies, who formally accuses Theramenes of treason before the Senate.
Accordingly Critias and the rest of the Thirty, who were by this time alarmed and feared above all that the citizens would flock to the support of Theramenes, enrolled a body of three thousand, who were to share, as they said, in the government.
Then Critias (for he still treated Theramenes as a friend) replied that it was impossible for people who wanted to gain power not to put out of the way those who were best able to thwart them.
he was establishing a democracy in Thessaly along with Prometheus, and arming the serfs against their masters.
Against Timarchus
One of the Thirty Tyrants, cited as Socrates' pupil whose crimes were held against his teacher.
Did you put to death Socrates the sophist, fellow citizens, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who put down the democracy, and after that, shall Demosthenes succeed in snatching companions of his own out of your hands, Demosthenes, who takes such vengeance on private citizens and friends of the people for their freedom of speech?
On the Mysteries
A cousin of Andocides' father named among Diocleides' accused.
Critias.
Tusculan Disputations
One of the Thirty Tyrants, addressed ironically by Theramenes as he drinks poison.
"I drink this to the fair Critias" — who had been most foul toward him.
Stromata
Athenian oligarch and poet cited as a borrower from Euripides.
Again, when Euripides had written, "From a father and mother who toil out a hard manner of living, the offspring are better," Critias writes:
Against Theocrines
Historical oligarchic leader named as head of the faction that plotted to admit the Lacedaemonians into the city via Eetioneia, thwarted by Aristocrates.
He razed to the ground Eetioneia, into which Critias and his faction were about to receive the Lacedaemonians, destroyed the fortress raised against us, and restored the people to their country, incurring himself dangers not like those which we are incurring, but dangers in which even disaster is glorious;
Against Timocrates
A member of the Thirty Tyrants invoked as a symbol of anti-democratic legislation.
For my part, I conceive that if the author of the statute had been Critias of the Thirty Tyrants, he would hardly have framed and introduced it in any other fashion than this.
Orations
One of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, credited with an inverted view of male and female beauty and with rewriting the ancient laws.
Or do you not know about Critias, one of the Thirty, that he said the fairest form in males was the female, and again in females the contrary?
De Anima
Philosopher who held the soul is composed of blood.
And I do not mean only those who fashion it out of manifest bodily things — as Hipparchus and Heraclitus out of fire, as Hippo and Thales out of water, as Empedocles and Critias out of blood, as Epicurus out of atoms (if atoms too compose corporealities by their conjunction), as Critolaus and his Peripatetics out of some fifth substance I know not what (if that too is a body, since it includes bod …
Memorabilia
A former associate of Socrates who became one of the Thirty Tyrants, noted for greed and violence under the oligarchy; his later conduct is used to test whether Socrates can be blamed for his students.
But when they parted from him, Critias fled to Thessaly, and got among men who put lawlessness before justice;
As Critias paid no heed whatever to this protest, Socrates, it is said, exclaimed in the presence of Euthydemus and many others, Critias seems to have the feelings of a pig:
So much, then, for the connexion of Critias with Socrates and their relation to each other.