CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.
Persons and scheme of the Timæus and Kritias.
Though the Republic of Plato appears as a substantive composition, not including in itself any promise of an intended sequel — yet the Timæus and Kritias are introduced by Plato as constituting a sequel to the Republic. Timæus the Pythagorean philosopher of Lokri, the Athenian Kritias, and Hermokrates, are now introduced, as having been the listeners while Sokrates was recounting his long conversation of ten Books, first with Thrasymachus, next with Glaukon and Adeimantus. The portion of that conversation, which described the theory of a model commonwealth, is recapitulated in its main characteristics: and Sokrates now claims from the two listeners some requital for the treat which he has afforded to them. He desires to see the citizens, whose training he has described at length, and whom he has brought up to the stage of mature capacity — exhibited by some one else as living, acting, and affording some brilliant evidence of courage and military discipline.[1] Kritias undertakes to satisfy his demand, by recounting a glorious achievement of the ancient citizens of Attica, who had once rescued Europe from an inroad of countless and almost irresistible invaders, pouring in from the vast island of Atlantis in the Western Ocean. This exploit is supposed to have been performed nearly 10,000 years before; and though lost out of the memory of the Athenians themselves, to have been commemorated and still preserved in the more ancient records of Sais in Egypt, and handed down through Solon by a family tradition to Kritias. But it is agreed between Kritias and Timæus,[2] that before the former enters upon his quasi-historical or mythical recital about the invasion from Atlantis, the latter shall deliver an expository discourse, upon a subject very different and of far greater magnitude. Unfortunately the narrative promised by Kritias stands before us only as a fragment. There is reason to believe that Plato never completed it.[3] But the discourse assigned to Timæus was finished, and still remains, as a valuable record of ancient philosophy.
[1] Plato, Timæus, p. 20 B.
[2] Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A.
[3] Plutarch, Solon, c. 33.
Another discourse appears to have been contemplated by Plato, to be delivered by Hermokrates after Kritias had concluded (Plato, Timæus, p. 20 A; Kritias, p. 108). But nothing of this was probably ever composed.
The Timæus is the earliest ancient physical theory, which we possess in the words of its author.
For us, modern readers, the Timæus of Plato possesses a species of interest which it did not possess either for the contemporaries of its author, or for the ancient world generally. We read in it a system — at least the sketch of a system — of universal philosophy, the earliest that has come to us in the words of the author himself. Among the many other systems, anterior or simultaneous — those of Thales and the other Ionic philosophers, of Herakleitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, Demokritus — not one remains to us as it was promulgated by its original author or supporters. We know all of them only in fragments and through the criticisms of others: fragments always scanty — criticisms generally dissentient, often harsh, sometimes unfair, introduced by the critic to illustrate opposing doctrines of his own. Here, however, the Platonic system is made known to us, not in this fragmentary and half-attested form, but in the full exposition which Plato himself deemed sufficient for it. This is a remarkable peculiarity.