Critias

Critias (in Greek old Κριτίας/ Kritías ) was a man Politique, a Philosophe, a speaker and Athenian poet , undoubtedly born between 450 and 460, died in 403 av. J. - C. Cousin of Plato, it appears in the beginning of the Timée and in the Critias (this identification is however disputed: it could be a question of his father, named him also Critias), like in the Charmide . Resulting from an aristocratic family, it was known for its beauty, its intelligence, its energy and its activity in all the fields at the same time. It was formed by the Sophiste S, but formed also part of the disciples of Socrate. That appeared, moreover, among the reasons for the death sentence of the philosopher.

Biography

It seems that Critias began its political career among the partisans of Alcibiade and that it acted so that this one can return of its banishment. Undoubtedly it was also ostracized to him: according to Xénophon, it would then have carried out an adventurous life in Thessalie.

Returned in Athens, like the others exiled political, at the time of the defeat of 404, it belonged to the group of thirty Athenians charged by the Spartiates, in particular Lysandre, to work out an oligarchical constitution putting an end to the democratic mode . This commission being transformed into Tyranny (known under the name of Tyrannie of the Thirty), Critias took an ascending fort on his/her colleagues and made carry out that which, up to that point, was the chief, Théramène. It was one of the principal persons in charge of the massacres made by tyranny. Among the decrees that it took, figure prohibition to teach the Rhétorique, which can appear astonishing on behalf of a pupil of the sophists, but perhaps wanted it to hold this art with those which held the capacity. He died into 403 at the time of a combat against the democrats who tried to take again the city.

Work

One does not have any more his literary work but some fragments. One of them, a speech made by Sisyphus in a Tragedy (see the extract below), posts a rationalist Athéisme which is well in the spirit of the sophists of the time. It is necessary to think however that the opinions professed by a character of Théâtre are not inevitably that of the author. There remain as fragments of studies as Critias had written on the constitution of certain Greek states, of the poems, but more nothing the speeches. It is also known that it had composed of the philosophical works in the form of dialog and one wondered whether it had not been in that the inspirer of Plato.

Critias was poet: there are of him some fragments, collected with Leipzig, 1827, and in the Poetae elegiaci of Johann Schneidewein, Gœttingue, 1839.

Extract of the Sisyphus of Critias

“It was a time when the life of the men was without rule, like that of the animals and to the service of the force, where the honest men did not have null reward, nor the malicious ones, either, of punishment. I think that it is later that the men established punitive laws so that justice was queen on mankind and that it maintained the overflows in slavery: one was punished each time a fault was made. Later, still, as the laws prevented the men from putting violence in the openly made acts, but that they made some in hiding-place, it is then, I think, that, for the first time, an advised man and of wise intention invented for the mortals the fear of gods, so that it had something there to fear for the malicious ones, even if they hide their acts, their words or their thoughts. Here thus why it introduced the idea of divinity, with the direction which it exists being higher which enjoys an eternal life, which hears and sees in spirit, which includes/understands and supervises these things, which is equipped of a divine nature: thus, he will hear all that is said in the mortals and will be able to see all that is done. If you contemplate in secrecy some fixed price, this one will not escape the gods, because there is in them the capacity to include/understand it. ”

Sextus Empiricus bringing back the remarks of Critias

One also finds in the text Against the mathematicians. (IX, 54.)of Sextus Empiricus, an exposure in the form of poem of the thought of Critias:

And Critias, one of those who were tyrants in Athens, seem to belong to the group of the atheists: he declares that the former legislators manufactured the fiction of God, defined as a power which would carry its glance on the right actions and the faults of the men, so that nobody carried wrong in hiding-place to his next, having always to keep punishment of the gods. Here how he formulates this idea: In this time formerly, the man trailed his life

Without order, bestial and subjected to the force,

And never no price returned to the goods,

Nor never with malicious the any punishment

Later the men, I believe it, have to punish

Instituted laws, so that the right reigned

And that pareillement <également with tous>,

Disproportion is maintained controlled

Then one could punish those which had fault.

But, since by the laws they were prevented

By the force, at the great day, to achieve their fixed prices

But that they made them safe from the night,

Then, I believe it, ,

A man with the astute and wise thought

Invented the fear < of the gods > for the mortals

So that the malicious ones did not cease fearing

“It was, said to them it, like an alive demon

of an eternal life. Its intellect hears

And all in any place sees. It directs the things

From its will. Its nature is divine,

By it he will understand any word of man,

And by it he will see all that is made.

And so in the secrecy still you meditate

Some ill deed, that does not escape

With the gods, because it is in them that the thought is placed. ”

To have account to return of what they would have done,

Known as, or thought, even in the secrecy:

Also it introduces the thought of the divine one.

And it is by these speeches that it gave its credit

With this avoided teaching of the greatest charm.

As for the truth, thus wrapped,

It was reduced to a lying speech,

He told thus that the gods lived

A celestial stay which by all its aspects

Could only frighten the unhappy mortals.

Because it knew extremely well from which comes for the human ones

Fear, and what can help misfortune.

< evils and goods > came from the celestial sphere,

Of this immense vault where the flashes shine,

Where the alarming noises of the thunder burst;

But where is also the spangled figure

Vault of heaven, and the sublime fresco,

The masterpiece of time, erudite architect,

Where the star of light, incandescent, advances.

And from which fall the rains on the assoiffée ground.

Here are fears of which it surrounded the men,

By which it knew, by the art of the word,

To found the idea of the Divinity as well as possible,

In the desired stay; and thus to abolish

With the laws the time of the illegality.

Then, a little later it concludes:

It is thus, I believe it, who somebody, the first,

Persuaded the mortals to form the thought

That there exist gods. '

Sextus Empiricus, Against the mathematicians. IX, 54. '

Random links: