Professor Edith Hall

And it turns out that Critias, who's one of the guys at this general symposium, knows a story of a real Kallipolis that existed all these thousand years ago, 98,000 years ago before that. And he says, well, actually, we don't need to be hypothetical anymore because I was told a story about a real place that existed.

And it turns out that Critias, who's one of the guys at this general symposium, knows a story of a real Kallipolis that existed all these thousand years ago, 98,000 years ago before that. And he says, well, actually, we don't need to be hypothetical anymore because I was told a story about a real place that existed.

And that was actually Athens of 9000 years ago before it got corrupted the way it is now. So we don't need a virtual city. We've got an example of a real Kallipolis. And it was our own city before it went bad. And because it's Plato, bad means democratic, run by unruly sailors, right?

And that was actually Athens of 9000 years ago before it got corrupted the way it is now. So we don't need a virtual city. We've got an example of a real Kallipolis. And it was our own city before it went bad. And because it's Plato, bad means democratic, run by unruly sailors, right?

And that was actually Athens of 9000 years ago before it got corrupted the way it is now. So we don't need a virtual city. We've got an example of a real Kallipolis. And it was our own city before it went bad. And because it's Plato, bad means democratic, run by unruly sailors, right?

Lots of blending of classes, lots of rowdy behaviour, lots of exciting theatrical culture, lots of law court litigation, all the things that made actually democratic Athens, in my view, the great place it was. Socrates has said he wants to outlaw, he wants a much more conservative, agrarian, very rigid class structure society in his hypothetical one in the Republic.

Lots of blending of classes, lots of rowdy behaviour, lots of exciting theatrical culture, lots of law court litigation, all the things that made actually democratic Athens, in my view, the great place it was. Socrates has said he wants to outlaw, he wants a much more conservative, agrarian, very rigid class structure society in his hypothetical one in the Republic.

Lots of blending of classes, lots of rowdy behaviour, lots of exciting theatrical culture, lots of law court litigation, all the things that made actually democratic Athens, in my view, the great place it was. Socrates has said he wants to outlaw, he wants a much more conservative, agrarian, very rigid class structure society in his hypothetical one in the Republic.

And lo and behold, Critias comes up with an account of such things. a conservative, class-bound, rigid, agrarian, non-democratic, he thinks, ideal city-state, which was what Athens was. So in a way, you've got a strange hypothetical future meeting an actual, allegedly, materially historical past. So that's the conceit.

And lo and behold, Critias comes up with an account of such things. a conservative, class-bound, rigid, agrarian, non-democratic, he thinks, ideal city-state, which was what Athens was. So in a way, you've got a strange hypothetical future meeting an actual, allegedly, materially historical past. So that's the conceit.

And lo and behold, Critias comes up with an account of such things. a conservative, class-bound, rigid, agrarian, non-democratic, he thinks, ideal city-state, which was what Athens was. So in a way, you've got a strange hypothetical future meeting an actual, allegedly, materially historical past. So that's the conceit.

But what Plato does very cleverly is actually cast, while he's letting Critiasse Most of it's in the Critias. Timaeus kicks it off, but the full detailed account that comes down in all our novels, all our fictions, all our movies of Callipolis and its rival, Atlantis, which is not Athenian. It's the complete opposite of Athens. It's a sea-going place which gets destroyed because it's sinful.

But what Plato does very cleverly is actually cast, while he's letting Critiasse Most of it's in the Critias. Timaeus kicks it off, but the full detailed account that comes down in all our novels, all our fictions, all our movies of Callipolis and its rival, Atlantis, which is not Athenian. It's the complete opposite of Athens. It's a sea-going place which gets destroyed because it's sinful.

But what Plato does very cleverly is actually cast, while he's letting Critiasse Most of it's in the Critias. Timaeus kicks it off, but the full detailed account that comes down in all our novels, all our fictions, all our movies of Callipolis and its rival, Atlantis, which is not Athenian. It's the complete opposite of Athens. It's a sea-going place which gets destroyed because it's sinful.

We've got these two historical rivals in a long-ago war supposedly in a very traditional old narrative that Critias has got access to. But we can go on to talk about just how Plato complicates that because he does cleverly point out how unreliable memories are going to be over 9,000 years.

We've got these two historical rivals in a long-ago war supposedly in a very traditional old narrative that Critias has got access to. But we can go on to talk about just how Plato complicates that because he does cleverly point out how unreliable memories are going to be over 9,000 years.

We've got these two historical rivals in a long-ago war supposedly in a very traditional old narrative that Critias has got access to. But we can go on to talk about just how Plato complicates that because he does cleverly point out how unreliable memories are going to be over 9,000 years.

Critias says that he had heard it from his grandfather, also named Critias, so that would be a man born in the much earlier 5th century. And this grandfather had heard it from his father, and his grandfather was 90 when he told it to the grandson. And he then says... Critias describes how he encountered the narrative.

Critias says that he had heard it from his grandfather, also named Critias, so that would be a man born in the much earlier 5th century. And this grandfather had heard it from his father, and his grandfather was 90 when he told it to the grandson. And he then says... Critias describes how he encountered the narrative.

Critias says that he had heard it from his grandfather, also named Critias, so that would be a man born in the much earlier 5th century. And this grandfather had heard it from his father, and his grandfather was 90 when he told it to the grandson. And he then says... Critias describes how he encountered the narrative.