Critias

“Critias” is one of Plato’s later dialogues. It contains an account of the mighty island state of Atlantis and its attempt to conquer the ancient Athenian state.

“Critias” is a continuation of the dialogue “Timaeus,” and it has reached our time unfinished. As part of the trilogy of dialogues that Plato intended to write—consisting of “Timaeus” and “Critias”—after “Critias” was supposed to follow the dialogue “Hermocrates.” But, as is commonly believed, the latter was never written.
The participants in the dialogue are the same as in “Timaeus”: Socrates, Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates.

The dialogue “Critias” has come down to us in an unfinished form. Several hypotheses exist about this. The main ones are:

* Plato actually finished the dialogue, but the ending was lost and therefore did not reach us.
* Plato, for some reasons, could not finish the dialogue, although he intended to. Presumably, Plato may have been thinking over the ending and did not write it right away; then he was forced to attend to other matters and postponed writing the ending of “Critias,” but was unable to return to it because not long afterwards he died.
* Plato intentionally left the dialogue unfinished.