•
Timaeus Unlike the other speakers of the
Critias, it is unclear whether Timaeus is a historical figure or not. While some classicists regard him as definitively historical, others guess that "Plato's picture of him has probably borrowed traits from various quarters". Frank assumes
Archytas of
Tarentum to be the person which Timaeus is partly based on. On the other hand,
F. M. Cornford strongly opposes any idea of a historical Timaeus: "The very fact that a man of such distinction left not the faintest trace in political or philosophic history is against his claim to be a historical person. The probability is that Plato invented him because he required a philosopher of the Western School, eminent both in science and statesmanship, and there was no one to fill the post at the imaginary time of the dialogue". But while there is no proof for Timaeus to be historical, there is also no proof that he did
not exist, since little is known of the history of the Italian city of
Locri. •
Critias From the very first comments on
Timaeus and
Critias in classical antiquity to the early 20th century, scholars took the identity of
this Critias and the oligarch Critias for granted. The first to contradict this view was
Burnet in 1914. Since then, the identity of Critias has been fiercely disputed among scholars. One group of classicists still claims him to be the famous oligarch Critias, member of the
Thirty Tyrants. Another suggests that this Critias is actually the grandfather of the oligarch. The latter group argues that there is too much distance of time between the oligarch Critias (460–403 BC) and
Solon (638–558 BC), the famous lawmaker, who supposedly brought the Atlantis story from Egypt to Greece. According to Plato, Solon told the story to the great-grandfather of the Critias appearing in this dialogue, Dropides, who then told it to his son, who was also named Critias and the grandfather of the Critias in the dialogue. The elder Critias then retold the story to his grandson when he was 90 and the younger Critias was 10. The latter group alleges that the tyrant's grandfather could not have
both talked to Solon
and still have been alive at the time the hypothetical discussion pictured in this dialogue was held. Thus they assume that it is the tyrant's grandfather who appears in both
Timaeus and
Critias, and his own grandfather, who was told the Atlantis story by Solon. On the other hand, this obviously too long time span between Solon and Critias would not be the only
anachronism in Plato's work. In fact, Plato produced quite a number of anachronisms in many of his dialogues. And further, there are indications that Solon was dated later than when he actually lived by writers prior to Aristotle. This leads one to believe that Plato somewhat condensed the happenings of the sixth century. For his purposes, Solon lived just before
Anacreon, and Anacreon in turn was active in the early fifth century. The elder Critias is not known to have achieved any personal distinction, and since he died long before Plato published the
Timaeus and
Critias, it would have made no sense for Plato to choose a virtually unknown statesman to appear in these dialogues who was uninteresting to his contemporaries. •
Socrates The speaker Socrates is, of course, identical with the well-known Athenian philosopher. •
Hermocrates Hermocrates is almost certainly the
Syracusan politician and general who is also mentioned by
Thucydides among others. He has the smallest share of the conversation in this dialogue. "Since the dialogue that was to bear his name was never written, we can only guess why Plato chose him. It is curious to reflect that, while Critias is to recount how the prehistoric Athens of nine thousand years ago had repelled the invasion from Atlantis and saved the Mediterranean peoples from slavery, Hermocrates would be remembered by the Athenians as the man who had repulsed their own greatest effort at imperialist expansion." ==Content==