Critias

• one of the thirty tyrants at Athens, Cic. Tusc. 1, 40, 96; id. de Or. 2, 22, 93; Nep. Thras. 2, 7.

(Κριτίας). An Athenian, a disciple of Socrates and Gorgias of Leontini. He was one of the most accomplished men of his time, and was distinguished as a poet and an orator. But he is best known as the chief of the Thirty Tyrants (q.v.), in defence of whose cause against the Liberators he fell in B.C. 403. He was the author of several tragedies. Some fragments of his poems have survived, the longest being from his political elegies. He seems to have had the gift of expression, but to have written in a harsh style.

• Paus. 1.8.5, Paus. 1.23.9, Paus. 6.3.5