Timæus is extolled by Sokrates as combining the character of a statesman with that of a philosopher: as being of distinguished wealth and family in his native city (the Epizephyrian Lokri), where he had exercised the leading political functions:--and as having attained besides, the highest excellence in science, astronomical as well as physical.[4] We know from other sources (though Plato omits to tell us so, according to his usual undefined manner of designating contemporaries) that he was of the Pythagorean school. Much of the exposition assigned to him is founded on Pythagorean principles, though blended by Plato with other doctrines, either his own or borrowed elsewhere. Timæus undertakes to requite Sokrates by giving a discourse respecting "The Nature of the Universe"; beginning at the genesis of the Kosmos, and ending with the constitution of man.[5] This is to serve as an historical or mythical introduction to the Platonic Republic recently described; wherein Sokrates had set forth the education and discipline proper for man when located as an inhabitant of the earth. Neither during the exposition of Timæus, nor after it, does Sokrates make any remark. But the commencement of the Kritias (which is evidently intended as a second part or continuation of the Timæus) contains, first, a prayer from Timæus that the Gods will pardon the defects of his preceding discourse and help him to amend them--next an emphatic commendation bestowed by Sokrates upon the discourse: thus supplying that recognition which is not found in the first part.[6] [Footnote 4: Plato, Timæus, pp. 20 A, 27 A.] [Footnote 5: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A. [Greek: e)/doxe ga\r ê(mi=n Ti/maion me/n, a(/te a)stronomikô/taton ê(mô=n, kai\ _peri\ phu/seôs tou= panto\s_ ei)de/nai ma/lista e)/rgon pepoiême/non, prô=ton le/gein a)rcho/menon a)po\ tê=s tou= ko/smou gene/seôs, teleuta=|n de\ ei)s a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin.]] [Footnote 6: Plato, Kritias, p. 108 B.] [Side-note: Poetical imagination displayed by Plato. He pretends to nothing more than probability. Contrast with Sokrates, Isokrates, Xenophon.]