Plato, Timaeus 20d · 20d
Critias is asked to tell his story
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Hermocrates — ὅδε οὖν ἡμῖν λόγον εἰσηγήσατο ἐκ παλαιᾶς ἀκοῆς· ὃν καὶ νῦν λέγε, ὦ Κριτία, τῷδε, ἵνα συνδοκιμάσῃ πρὸς τὴν ἐπίταξιν εἴτʼ ἐπιτήδειος εἴτε ἀνεπιτήδειός ἐστι.
Critias — ταῦτα χρὴ δρᾶν, εἰ καὶ τῷ τρίτῳ κοινωνῷ Τιμαίῳ συνδοκεῖ.
Timaeus — δοκεῖ μήν.
Critias — ἄκουε δή, ὦ Σώκρατες, λόγου μάλα μὲν ἀτόπου, παντάπασί γε μὴν ἀληθοῦς, ὡς ὁ τῶν ἑπτὰ σοφώτατος
Hermocrates: This man, then, brought us an account from old hearsay. Tell it now as well, Critias, to Socrates here, so that he may help judge whether it is suitable or unsuitable for the assignment. Critias: This must be done, if Timaeus, our third partner, agrees as well. Timaeus: It does seem good to me. Critias: Listen then, Socrates, to an account that is very strange, yet altogether true, as the wisest of the seven said, Solon, at one time.
Word by word
The setting
Hermocrates asks Critias to repeat the account he proposed, so that Socrates can judge whether it fits the assignment. Critias begins by promising a strange but entirely true story.
A note on this passage
Hermocrates uses hode, "this one here," for Critias, who sits beside him, and says the account came ek palaias akoēs, "from old hearing." The word akoē means what is heard, so the story is presented as hearsay from the start, and Hermocrates asks Socrates to syndokimasēi, join in testing it, against the epitaxis, the order he laid on them. The verbs of agreement syndokei and dokei go back and forth between the three men, with Timaeus named as the tritos koinōnos, the third partner.
Critias then describes his own story in two clauses joined by men and mēn: atopou, out of place or strange, yet pantapasi alēthous, entirely true. Truth is claimed before the story has begun. He names his authority with ho tōn hepta sophōtatos, "the wisest of the seven," the usual way to speak of the Seven Sages, and the name Solon follows in the next sentence.
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