Plato's unfinished dialogue telling the story of Atlantis and primeval Athens, breaking off mid-sentence just as Zeus is about to speak.
Critias is Plato's sequel to the Timaeus, and the direct source of the Atlantis legend as the Western tradition has known it ever since. Picking up where Timaeus left off, Critias takes over the conversation to narrate a war said to have occurred nine thousand years earlier between ancient Athens and the island empire of Atlantis, a story Critias claims was preserved by Egyptian priests, brought to Greece by Solon, and kept in his own family's papers.
Critias first describes prehistoric Athens: a larger, richer Acropolis, a warrior caste of about twenty thousand who owned nothing privately and lived a communal, Spartan-like existence devoted to virtue, and a fertile countryside since eroded down to "the bones of a body wasted by disease." He then turns to Atlantis itself, founded when Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito, fortified her hilltop home with concentric rings of land and sea, and fathered five pairs of twin sons who became its first kings. The bulk of the dialogue is an extraordinarily detailed description of the island's engineering and wealth: canals, bridges, harbors ringed in bronze, tin, and orichalcum, a temple of Poseidon roofed in ivory and gold, hot and cold springs, a vast irrigated plain crossed by a man-made ditch ten thousand stades long, and a military establishment of sixty thousand district commanders each fielding chariots, cavalry, and infantry.
The text then explains Atlantis's constitution and the kings' oath-bound court, sworn over a bull hunted and sacrificed by hand, and traces the decline of the Atlantean royal line: as the portion of divine nature in them was diluted by repeated mixture with mortal stock, they grew arrogant and unjust despite still appearing outwardly glorious. The dialogue ends abruptly as Zeus gathers the gods to decide how to punish them, in the middle of Zeus's speech. Whether Plato meant Atlantis as history, an allegory for the corrupting effects of empire and wealth (aimed at Periclean Athens or the Athenian empire), or simply left the trilogy of Timaeus-Critias-Hermocrates unfinished is still debated; no ancient or modern excavation has ever located Atlantis.
“Everything said by any of us must, I suppose, amount to imitation and representation.”
— Critias · read this chapter →
“the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was once larger than Libya and Asia together, but now, sunk by earthquakes, has left an impassable mud that blocks any who sail out from here into the open sea”
— Critias · read this chapter →
“What is left, then, as happens on small islands, is like the bones of a body wasted by disease compared to what was there before”
— Critias · read this chapter →
“He took the hill where she had lived and fortified it, cutting it off all around, forming alternating rings of sea and land encircling one another”
— Critias · read this chapter →
“when the portion of the god within them began to grow faint, worn thin by repeated mixture with much that was mortal, and the human temperament gained mastery, then, no longer able to bear their prosperity, they began to behave shamefully”
— Critias · read this chapter →
It is the source of the Atlantis story: a dialogue in which Critias narrates a war between prehistoric Athens and the island empire of Atlantis, describing Atlantis's founding by Poseidon, its elaborate engineering and wealth, and the moral decline that provoked divine judgment. It breaks off unfinished in the middle of a speech by Zeus.
No. The dialogue stops abruptly mid-sentence as Zeus is addressing the assembled gods about how to punish Atlantis. It's part of an unfinished trilogy (Timaeus, Critias, and a planned Hermocrates) that Plato apparently never completed.
Critias presents the story as history transmitted from Egyptian priests to Solon and preserved in his own family's papers, and the text treats it as literally true rather than as an admitted fable. No archaeological or historical evidence for an island matching the description has ever been found.
According to the text, the Atlantean kings were originally descended from Poseidon and governed with wisdom and self-restraint, but as their divine nature became diluted through generations of mixing with mortals, they grew arrogant, greedy, and unjust, prompting Zeus to gather the gods to decide their punishment.
Critias is presented as a direct continuation of the Timaeus: the same speakers reconvene, and Critias takes up the narrative Socrates had asked for the day before, moving from Timaeus's account of the cosmos to a concrete story of ancient Athens defeating Atlantis.
It is described as larger and richer than the Athens of Plato's day, ruled by a warrior class of about twenty thousand who owned no private property, lived communally, and were devoted to virtue and the common good, closely resembling the guardian class described in the Republic.
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