CRITIAS, an Athenian orator and poet, and one of the thirty tyrants. In his youth he habitually listened to the conversations of Socrates, but his manhood was devoted to selfish political intrigues. He stirred up the Penestae of Thessaly against their masters, and made himself so troublesome at home that he was banished by the people. Returning to Athens he was made ephor by the oligarchical party; and he was the most cruel and unscrupulous of the thirty tyrants who in 404 b.c. were appointed by the Lacedaemonians. See Greece.