Hermocrates (dialogue)

Hermocrates is a hypothetic dialogue, assumed to be the third part of Plato's late trilogy along with Timaeus and Critias. Since Plato never completed the Critias for an unknown reason, it is quite certain that he never began writing the Hermocrates. In any case, the persons that would have appeared are very likely be the same as in Timaeus and Critias, though the unnamed stranger mentioned at the beginning of the Timaeus might have unveiled his identity.

Hermocrates, the name giver of this dialogue, had only a small share of the conversation in the previous dialogues. Since Critias recounted the story of the ideal state in ancient Athens of nine thousand years ago — and why it was able to repel the invasion from the imperialist naval power Atlantis — by referring on prehistoric accounts via Solon and the Egyptians, it might have been Hermocrates' task to tell how the imperialist naval power that Athens of Plato's lifetime had turned into had suffer a bitter defeat in the Sicilian expedition against Syracuse and eventually in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta — since he was a Syracusan strategos during the time of the Sicilian expedition.

In popular culture

In the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis the Lost Dialogue of Plato is known as the Hermocrates. In the game the book was actually extant and was an important tool for Dr. Jones throughout the game.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! by Shonen Jump!, Hermocrates (named Hermos in Yu-Gi-Oh) is 1 of the 3 warriors of Atlantis turned into dragons along with Critias and Timaeus (other parts of Plato's stories) in the Waking the Dragons arc of the series.

References

• Clay, Diskin (1997). "The Plan of Plato’s Critias". In Calvo, Tomás; Brisson, Luc (Edd.). Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias. International Plato Studies. 9. Sankt Augustin: Acedemia. pp. 49–54. ISBN 3896650041. 
• Eberz, J. (1910). "Die Bestimmung der von Platon entworfenen Trilogie Timaios, Kritias, Hermokrates". Philologus 69: 40–50. ISSN 00317985. 
• Forsyth, Phyllis Young (1980). Atlantis. The making of myth. Montréal: McGill-Queens Univ. Press. ISBN 0709910002.