<b>Timaeus by Plato</b>&nbsp;is one of&nbsp;Plato&#39;s dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character&nbsp;Timaeus of Locri, written&nbsp;c.&nbsp;360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings and is followed by the dialogue&nbsp;<i>Critias</i>.<br /><br />Participants in the&nbsp;dialogue&nbsp;include&nbsp;Socrates, Timaeus,&nbsp;Hermocrates, and&nbsp;Critias. Some scholars believe that it is not the Critias of the&nbsp;Thirty Tyrants&nbsp;who appears in this dialogue, but his grandfather, who is also named Critias.<br /><br />It has been suggested from some traditions (Diogenes Laertius&nbsp;(VIII 85) from&nbsp;Hermippus of Smyrna&nbsp;(3rd century BC) and&nbsp;Timon of Phlius&nbsp;(c.&nbsp;320 &ndash;&nbsp;c.&nbsp;235 BC)) that&nbsp;<i>Timaeus</i>&nbsp;was influenced by a book about&nbsp;Pythagoras, written by&nbsp;Philolaus, although this assertion is generally considered false.<br /><br />The dialogue takes place the day after Socrates described his ideal state. In Plato&#39;s works, such a discussion occurs in the&nbsp;<i>Republic</i>. Socrates feels that his description of the ideal state wasn&#39;t sufficient for the purposes of entertainment and that &quot;I would be glad to hear some account of it engaging in transactions with other states&quot; (19b).