Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/255

 THE EXILES. -KRITIAS. 233 knowledge in detail, Kritias, son of Kalloeschrus. He bad been among the persons accused as having been concerned in the mutilation of the Hernia?, and seems to have been for a long time important in the political, the literary, and the philosophical world of Athens. To all three, his abilities qualified him to do honor. Both his poetry, in the Solonian or moralizing vein, and his eloquence, published specimens of which remained in the Au- gustan age, were of no ordinary merit. His wealth was large, and his family among the most ancient and conspicuous in Ath- ens : one of his ancestors had been friend and companion of the lawgiver Solon. He was himself maternal uncle of the philoso- pher Plato, 1 and had frequented the society of Sokrates so much as to have his name intimately associated in the public mind with that remarkable man. We know neither the cause, nor even the date of his exile, except so far, as that he was not in banishment immediately after the revolution of the Four Hun- dred, and that he was in banishment at the time when the gen- erals were condemned after the battle of Arginusae. a He had passed the time, or a part of the time, of his exile in Thessaly, where he took an active part in the sanguinary feuds carried on among the oligarchical parties of that lawless country. He is said to have embraced, along with a leader named, or surnamed, Prometheus, what passed for the democratical side in Thessaly arming the penestoe, or serfs, against their masters. 3 What the conduct and dispositions of Kritias had been before this period we are unable to say ; but he brought with him now, on returp 1 Sec Stallbaum's Preface to the Charmides of Plato, his note on the Tim.Tcus of Plato, p. 20, E, and the Scholia on the same passage. Kritias is introduced as taking a conspicuous part in four of the Platonic dialogues ; Protagoras, Charmides, Timacn" -d Kritias ; the last only a fragment, not to mention the Ervxias. The small remains of the elegiac poetry of Kritias are to be found in S.-lmeidcwin, Delect. Poet. Grcec. p. 136, seq. Both Cicero (De Orat. ii, 22, .):{) and Dionys. Hal. (Judic. de Lysia, c. 2, p. 454; Jud. dc Isaeo, p. 627) r>ot ice his historical compositions. A'-<;iit the concern of Kritias in the mutilation of the Ilcrmas, as affirmed l<y Diognetus, see Andokides de Mystcriis, s. 47. He was first cousin cf Amlokides, by the mother's side. 3 Xenoph. Hellcn ii, 3, 35 Mcmoub. i, 2, 24
 * Xer.oph. Hellcn. ii, 3, 35.