The setting for Plato's Timaeus-Critias dialogues

[atalante]

 
quote from:  http://www.thefreelibrary.com/WHO'S+WHO+IN+PLATO'S+TIMAEUS-CRITIAS+AND+WHY.-a053868362

Part 1
The Setting.

The speeches of Timaeus-Critias are all given at a certain Kritias's house,(3) and they have a predetermined theme because of what was said at Socrates' house the previous day. Yesterday, when Socrates was host, he entertained his four guests with a speech outlining a city. Today's summary of yesterday's speech makes yesterday's city sound like the city built in the speeches of Plato's Republic. Once that apparent connection is reflected upon, however, it becomes evident that Socrates' speech yesterday was an incomplete version of the city of the Republic. Moreover, it was incomplete in a telling way: Socrates' speech yesterday stopped at the precise point where the Republic took up today's theme, how the city makes war.(4)

By stopping there yesterday, Socrates also omitted any mention of the theme taken up immediately after the city at war in the Republic: the philosopher ruler. This theme too, perhaps the most memorable novelty of the Republic, has direct relevance for the Timaeus-Critias because Socrates flatters today's interlocutors by calling them philosophers and statesmen, men fit to speak on the grave topics of the city at war and its encompassing cosmos.(5)

Socrates had thus maneuvered, through his abridged account of the Republic, to induce the others to speak on topics on which he himself is wholly fit to speak and had in fact spoken in the Republic.

Today he asserts his inability to continue, alleging his unfitness to speak about his city at war because he is unable to sufficiently magnify the citizens or city he had described yesterday.(6) Furthermore, he states that he is not alone: poets and Sophism are also unfit to praise their cities or citizens. Poets are unfit because they are imitators wholly tied to their own things, the things of the city in which they have been raised. Sophists--wanderers from place to place who are neither wise nor politic--are unfit because their uprootedness makes them unable to represent men who are both philosophers and statesmen.(7)

Socrates, poem, and Sophism are all unfit; but there are present here today, Socrates says, philosophers and statesmen fit to describe the city at war: Timaeus of Locri, Kritias of Athens, and Hermokrates of Syracuse. That is the task Socrates assigned them yesterday, having won the right to demand this effort by his own speech, that carefully truncated version of the Republic given yesterday and briefly recalled before today's speeches.

 As if to dictate that the reader compare yesterday's city with the city of the Republic, Plato has Socrates end his summary in the Timaeus by asking the others if he had omitted any point. Timaeus answers emphatically: no point has been omitted.

Readers [who are thoroughly familiar with] the Republic will therefore know that yesterday, with this audience, Socrates chose to stop abruptly, just short of the theme raised next in the Republic: war among Hellenes.(  Such war is not war at all, Socrates had said [in the Republic], but faction, for Hellenes are kin and ought not to enslave one another or ravage their countryside or bum their homes.)

Socrates refrained from mentioning these matters in the conversation yesterday, a conversation which took place in a pause during the greatest war among Hellenes, the Peloponnesian war between Ionians and Dorians. Present at this conversation are a small number of very special Ionian and Dorian statesmen whose cities would all be swept up in the general conflict among Hellenes [i.e. the Peloponesian Wars].

 The Timaeus-Critias makes clear that Socrates gave his account of the city yesterday at the request of the others, but he agreed to do so only after extracting from them a promise that they would repay him with speeches on a subject he would prescribe.(9) Thanks to the bargain Socrates struck yesterday we have, in the Timaeus-Critias, a non-Socratic elaboration of a theme on which we have a [previous] Socratic account, the city at war. We also have a non-Socratic elaboration of a comprehensive setting for the city at war, a whole cosmology [i.e. the Timaeus dialogue], on which we have no Socratic account.(10)

 Although Socrates' plan had been carefully arranged, the others had, overnight, hit upon a scheme that would alter their task somewhat. Therefore, they ask Socrates' permission to make changes in the speeches he prescribed.(11) Instead of showing Socrates' city at war, they ask if he would be satisfied with a suggestion made by Kritias, the other Athenian present. Kritias would like to relate an ancient tale showing ancient Athens at war. For as Kritias listened to Socrates' speech yesterday, he was reminded of Athens and of an old tale about Athens at war against a great city: fabulous Atlantis.(12)

Will Socrates be content to hear a tale of ancient Athens at war against a great enemy, a glorious tale celebrating an Athenian victory against an imperial foe far mightier than she but flawed and made vulnerable by its dreams of glory? It is wholly appropriate, Socrates says,(13) that such a tale be told by an Athenian today, for a Panathenaia is unfolding outside -- a festival at which strangers were accustomed to gather and to be regaled with tales celebrating Athens, especially tales celebrating the Athenian victories over imperial Persia. 

Rather than hear others describe his fictional city at war, Socrates agrees to hear an Athenian describe Athens at war, a much earlier Athens of noble forebears performing a deed of unparalleled heroism bound to inspire her citizens and sober her enemies.

 Listening to this tale of Athenian glory against an imperial foe, however, listening almost silently but after strongly encouraging its narration, is a very special stranger: Hermokrates of Syracuse. Hermokrates would become a most fateful opponent of Athens' own, very real imperial ambition, the man most responsible for the ruin of that ambition. For Hermokrates would--a few years after the conversation in the Timaeus-Critias--advocate and help conduct a brilliant military campaign, directing his city's and island's resistance against Athens' great Sicilian adventure (415-413). Partly because of his remarkable knowledge of his enemy and their ways, Hermokrates would succeed in inflicting on Athens the crushing and demoralizing defeat which was decisive in Athens' ultimate decline.

Not only is the Timaeus-Critias crafted to have great statesmen speak on the [idealized] city at war -- it is crafted to have a great Athenian statesman speak about a barely remembered glory claimed for Ionian Athens in war and to have that speech attended by the Doric statesman most responsible for Athens' great defeat in her own most significant imperial ambition.


footnotes:
(3) Timaeus, Loeb Classical Library (1929), 20c, 26c.

(4) Republic, trans. A. Bloom (New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Basic Books, 1968), 5.466e.

(5) Timaeus 19e.

(6) Timaeus 19c-d.

(7) Timaeus 19d-20c.

( Republic 5.469b-471c.

(9) Timaeus 20b-c.

(10) Beginning at least with Proclus (ca. 412-485 A.D.), some commentators have thought that Socrates' speech yesterday simply was the Republic.

See Proclus, The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato, in Five Books; Containing a Treasury of Pythagoric and Platonic Physiology, trans. T. Taylor (Kila, Mon.: Kessinger Publishing Co., 1993), 1:4-5; Alfred E. Taylor, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 13, 45; Plato, "The Republic," The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), 1:591; Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks, trans. W. B. Hills (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), 477-8; Seth Benardete, "On Plato's Timaeus and Timaeus's Science Fiction," Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 2, no. 1 (1971): 21-63.

This view has been opposed by Gilbert Ryle, Plato's Progress (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 230; Francis Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 4-5; Paul Friedlander, Plato: The Dialogues, Second and Third Periods, trans. H. Meyerhoff (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 357-9.

Plato states that Socrates narrated the Republic the day after the first occurrence of the festival of Bendis (Republic 1.327a, 354a). This festival took place on 19/20 Thargelion.  The Timaeus-Critias occurs during a Panathenaia or on 28/29/30 of Hekatombaion (Timaeus 21a). This was two full months after the festival of Bendis. To suppose that Socrates' speech the day before the Timaeus simply was the Republic forces one to suppose either that Plato consciously misrepresented the festival in the Timaeus or that he mistook a day in late-May/early-June for a day in mid to late August.  H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 33-50. 

(11) Timaeus 20d.

(12) Timaeus 25e, 26c-d.

(13) Timaeus 26e.


 

[BlueHue2]

SORRY for this reply

By " Lowdown" on Atlantis I meant in 1000 bc not 2015 ad.

You allready know that Plato's Atlantis Part

is a satire on Plato's contemporary Athens trade Boycotts with

 Persia or Syracuse as the"Atlantes" dd Nikias Navigation treaty dd 420 bc

and the sicillian Raid on Syracuse dd 415-413 bc.

with Nikias & Alkibiades as AtlANTIS kINGS ePIMETHEUE & pROMETHEUS.

I am pitching my view on Atlantis location by etymology only.

Hope that you can enjoy this spell breaker narrative.

Sincerely, 'BlueHue'

[atalante]

Bluehue,

I see you are still doing well, and still involved with Atlantis.
In keeping with the title of this topic, here are some comments about parts of your post.

The Atlantis stories were not just a satire on the Nikias treaty of 421 B C. 

The Timaeus dialogue explains that a 3rd military expert was called away on government business, and that Critias and Hermocrates will be required to take the place of the missing person.

Some various names have been suggested for the important "missing" person in the Timaeus dialogue. 

However, Plato's story elements indicate that Thucydides was the missing 3rd military leader -- and he was called away to participate in the battle of Amphipolis, ca. 422 BC.  Afterwards, Thucydides was banished from Athens.  The battle of Amphipolis was so messy that, afterwards, both sides wanted to stop fighting -- so Nikias arranged a truce in 421 BC.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amphipolis


I believe the original insipration for an Atlantis story was an "Egyptian paradise-land".  Consequently, Atlantis has been hard to find -- because the Egyptian original story was abstract. 

[BlueHue2]

DEAR,  Atalante

Thank You for your spiritual support pep-talk !

in my childhood, I was not destined to change the Future,

So by studying the distant past I hoped to make a lcontribution of wisdom.

Why do civilised people make war, what's the purpose ?

In the past Agricultural food resources were the issue for human servitude by landholders

today almost everything tendoh   n ir gi.s to be automated by intellectuals. This is named Politics

Every Major City is overspending ignoring overheadsand belittling te consequences

For instance the  megalomaniac-City of Del
ft  Hollan
d,dmy keyboard went hiwire again

You will understand thatI keep my messages down to a minimum

I am a klutz with computers & keyboards I got Myopia-Gravis & Alzheimer (Phase-1)

anyway, our Major allowed an uneccesary Railway to be build and a new Cityhall

financially based on future Tourist Taxes

This CityHall and railwaystations have become 'White Elephants'already

Delft is known only for an immigrant painter Vermeer of Delft,

who was an Artdealer and so poor that he used 30 paintings as payment of rent

Well his Studio was/is 500 meters from the City center and while spending

100 million Euro's on unneccesary building projects, There is no money cash

to make tourist infrastructure around his former Studio now a hospital parkinglot

I was promised a 25.000 ($)fine if I went to a newspaper to tell my discovery

My idea was to buy the studiobuilding and use it as a museum on timesharing

Ofcourse Painter Vermeer is only worldfamous because his paintings are Not in Delft now

So the object/project is to use the original studio room in which all 30

interior paintings were fabricated as an exposition room for one painting each year

for the comming 30 years.

The one painting is then already insured by the present owners in exchange for

a free exhibition in Delft it is a simple idea called Artobject exhibition timesharing

It is the most logical way to pay for the new Cityhall & Railwaystation.

However pride & Prejudice and the fact that a simple citizen discovered

the ORIGINAL location of Vermeers longsought Studio, prevents the City council

to act logically, on the contrary a Railway viaduct used for carparking is demolished

in order to build the  same carpark underground and a ditch to conduct groundwater

I spent 200 ($)on 20 advertisments in 6 months telling the CityCouncil not to overspend

And by lo, the Council vented their doubt on this prestige-project

since the surrounding carparks are 85% EMPTY all year round.

But I seem to be a nobody that is bad for publicity.  Maybe that is the same

with my Atlantis in Aden project I have no cloud to promote the óriginal'Atlantis'

It is like the second Law of economics from the Parkingson's Law

People have become used to throw good money after bad money, that they cannot stop

unless an essential service is cut in the former case the Bridge-operator was laid off

In AtlantisLocation case various people have spent somuch effort barking up the wrong tree-location

That is not adventatious any more to indicate the real Atlantis of Plato

AND than there is the grand public attention spann.

I have put-up a simple A4-shortpaper explaining the essential Atlantislocation discovery

Formerly you have already discussed that in ancient Greek, Cities were named differently in Linear-B vocabulary

The Greeks themselves indicate that they arrived in Greece as natural diseaster-forced immigrants

from Atlantis making it impossable that Athens and Atlantis co-existed in the modern Mediaterranean era

People consider that in forming my 11th theory I have cut corners leaving-out information.

The problem with Atlantis locating is the Elephant in the named 'ELEPHANTUS MAXIMUS ASSYRUS'

Atlantis and also ATHE litterary mean: (White/Flying-)Elephant City. HattiLand is Elephant land !

My 11th Atlantis theory is a core from which to devellope further studies.

I do appologize to 'colleguaes'who have put a lot of effort into finding 'Atlanti' and did NOT find it

I myself didn't do much.  PLATO's ATHE is registredin the Phillips-Atlas register as ATHE in Aden

I found THAT in 1969 after doubting Dr Ganalopoulos insinuation that THERA would be ancient 'Atlantis'

Now without much further adoo   I thank The Atlan.Org heritors for the change to act as my'Plattform'

and the incomparable support from "JULIA" who unshrouwded the 'Peoples-of-AD'from Koran quotations.

By the time others realise my points, Atlanis on Line may have lost it's mystique as an'Atlantis'website.

My 'Atlantis HORSE=Feathers have become Dinosaur-Feathers alltogether ! Some say I have no 'proof'

But than again I wasn't searching for 'ATLANTIS' BUT for ATHE ( Which was less harder to locate!)

Enjoy  this FILE attachment !

sincerely, "[size=12pt]BlueYou[/size](2)""

[imap143]

Thank you guys