TIMAEU [2]
and there is no excuse for not complying with your
request. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber of
Critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, we
talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which I
wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he may
help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not.
Crit. I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner, approves.
Tim. I quite approve.
Crit. Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is
certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of
the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my
great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of
his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who
remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great
and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into
oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one
in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse.
It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of
praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival.
Soc. Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the
Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be
not a mere legend, but an actual fact?
Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man;
for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly
ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day
of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which,
according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and
the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us
sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of
fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please
Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of
men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well
remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes,
Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the
business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with
him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the
factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country
when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.
And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.
About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which
ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and
the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.
Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river
Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and
is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for
their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is
asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they
are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there
with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in
such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither
he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the
times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of
antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our
part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man,"
and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and
reckoning up the dates, tried to compute
request. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber of
Critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, we
talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which I
wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he may
help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not.
Crit. I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner, approves.
Tim. I quite approve.
Crit. Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is
certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of
the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my
great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of
his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who
remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great
and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into
oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one
in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse.
It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of
praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival.
Soc. Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the
Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be
not a mere legend, but an actual fact?
Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man;
for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly
ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day
of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which,
according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and
the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us
sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of
fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please
Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of
men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well
remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes,
Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the
business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with
him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the
factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country
when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.
And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.
About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which
ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and
the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.
Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river
Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and
is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for
their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is
asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they
are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there
with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in
such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither
he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the
times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of
antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our
part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man,"
and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and
reckoning up the dates, tried to compute