Story summary
Краткое содержание: Критий
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 7 parts
- Аудио скоро
A sea god circles his beloved's hill with rings of water, and ten kings swear oaths in bull's blood.
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Критий — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 25 min20 min fast, 30 min slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 5 800
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Сложное чтение long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Первая публикация
- около 360 г. до н. э.by Платон
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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Критий in short
Critias begins with a plea for fair judgment, because speaking about human affairs asks more of a speaker than speaking about the gods. Then it tells of two powers from nine thousand years ago. One is an Athens of shared property, modest homes and brave guardians.
What Критий is about
What happens when a sea god falls in love with a mortal woman and builds a home around her hill? In Critias, he circles her dwelling with rings of water and land, so that no one can reach her. That scene sits at the heart of this dialogue by Plato, the Athenian philosopher.
The book is a fragment that follows Timaeus and hands the floor to Critias. He promises a tale of two rival powers nine thousand years in the past: an ancient Athens and a vast island kingdom called Atlantis. It reached him from the lawgiver Solon, who heard it from Egyptian priests. Under every page runs one question: what do wealth and power do to good people?
Для кого. Readers who love lost worlds, ancient cities, and myths rich in exact measurements will enjoy this book, as will those drawn to stories of how good communities rise and change.
The story in 7 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
Critias asks for mercy before he begins
The dialogue opens just after Timaeus finishes his speech on the making of the world. He prays that if he has erred, the god will set him right, and he hands the argument to Critias.
Critias accepts, but he at once asks for more indulgence than Timaeus received. It is easier to seem to speak well about the gods than about human beings. Listeners know very little about the gods, so almost any account sounds acceptable. Human affairs are different, because everyone knows them closely.
He proves the point with a picture. When a painter shows mountains, rivers and woods, viewers are glad of a rough likeness, because nobody knows the original in detail. When a painter shows a human face, every flaw is spotted at once. Speech works the same way, for every speech is only an image of something else.
Socrates grants the request and extends it to Hermocrates, who speaks last. Critias adds a prayer to Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, because his whole tale rests on what he remembers. The scene tells you how to listen: this is an image of a human world, and it deserves close judgment.
A tale about people is judged more closely than a tale about gods, so a good speaker asks for fairness and then earns it.
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Ancient Athens was a city of shared life
Critias begins nine thousand years before his own day, with a war between those outside the Pillars of Heracles and those within them.
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Poseidon founds a kingdom around Cleito's hill
Now Critias turns to the enemy.
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The royal city and plain are vast works
The kings spent generations building.
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Ten kings bind themselves with law and oath
Within his own territory, each king held absolute authority, subject to specific laws.
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Wealth is safe only while virtue rules
Critias says the first kings of Atlantis valued virtue above all else.
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The tale reaches us through a chain of memory
Critias works hard to show how his story survived.
Read all 7 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Critias An Athenian who tells the tale of Athens and Atlantis as he remembers it from his family, and who asks his friends for fair judgment.
- Timaeus A speaker who has just described the making of the world and now hands the argument over to Critias.
- Socrates The listener who grants the requests for indulgence and reminds Critias that the audience expects much.
- Hermocrates The last speaker of the group, who encourages Critias and waits for his own turn.
- Poseidon The sea god who receives Atlantis, loves Cleito, shapes the rings around her hill and sets laws for his ten sons.
- Cleito A young woman of the island, orphaned when Poseidon loves her, who becomes mother of the ten princes.
- Atlas The eldest son of Poseidon and Cleito, who becomes the first king over his nine brothers and gives the island and ocean their name.
- Solon The Athenian lawgiver who heard the story from Egyptian priests and meant to use it in a poem.
How it ends (spoiler)
The dialogue breaks off before the end. Critias has described the rise of Atlantis and how the kings, once wise, let their divine nature fade and grew greedy and unjust. Zeus sees this and, wanting to punish them so they might improve, gathers all the gods in their most sacred dwelling at the center of the world. He begins to speak, and the text stops there.
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Вопросы о книге Критий
What is Plato's Critias about?
Critias tells of a war nine thousand years ago between an ancient Athens and the island kingdom of Atlantis. It describes Athens' guardians and land, Poseidon's founding of Atlantis, its ringed capital, and the laws of its ten kings.
Who is Critias in the dialogue?
Critias is an Athenian speaker who takes over after Timaeus. He tells the Atlantis story as it came to him through his family, from Solon, who heard it from Egyptian priests.
Is the story of Atlantis true?
Critias claims it came from Egyptian priests through Solon, but Plato wrote it as part of a philosophical dialogue. Readers have long debated whether it is history or a story made to teach about states and virtue.
Why is Critias unfinished?
The text stops while Zeus begins to address the gods, and the planned speech of Hermocrates is not written. Scholars do not know why, but what remains is a complete picture of both societies.
What is the main message of Critias?
The dialogue holds that a state stays good only while its rulers value virtue above wealth. Athens thrives on simple shared life, while Atlantis shows how great riches test a people's character.
Как сослаться на это издание
Plato. Critias. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/critias.
Plato. (2026). Critias. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/critias (Original work published ca. 360 B.C.E.)
Plato. Critias. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/critias.
@book{plato2026critias,
author = {Plato},
title = {Critias},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/critias},
note = {First published ca. 360 BCE}
}
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