CRITIAS, Athenian orator and politician. In his youth he was a pupil of Gorgias and Socrates. In 415 B.C. he was impli cated in the mutilation of the Hermae (q.v.) and imprisoned. In 411 he helped to put down the Four Hundred, and was instru mental in procuring the recall of Alcibiades. He was banished (probably in the democratic reaction of 407) and fled to Thessaly, where he stirred up the Penestai (the helots of Thessaly) against their masters, and endeavoured to establish a democracy. Return ing to Athens he became one of the Thirty Tyrants who in 404 were appointed by the Lacedaemonians. He was killed in battle against Thrasybulus and the returning democrats. Critias was a man of varied talents—poet, orator, historian and philosopher. Some fragments of his elegies will be found in Bergk, Poeta Lyrici Graeci.