Of the small but elite group of Plato's latest dialogues the Timaeus is the only one to which I shall devote a chapter – and it will be a short chapter, dealing with a single but quite crucial aspect of the dialogue: the status of the account that Plato has the main speaker, Timaeus, give of the cosmos and its origins, together with the closely connected question of Plato's, and Socrates', relationship to this Timaeus. (What I present here, as in the previous chapter, will be a sketch, on outline of an idea, but one that is not only consistent with but grows directly from the argument of the book as a whole.) My brief treatment of this dialogue is intended to show the application to the Timaeus of my special thesis about the reasons why Plato chooses, in his late dialogues, not to use Socrates in the leading role that he reserved almost exclusively for him in the first two dialogue groups. Given my larger thesis about the closeness, even virtual identity, of Plato to his character Socrates, the question why, in the latest group, he should promote others to this role, in five out of six cases, is clearly pressing.