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Plato's History of Atlantis
Plato has preserved for us the history of Atlantis. If our views are
correct, it is one of the most valuable records which have come down to us from
antiquity.
Plato lived 400 years before the birth of Christ. His ancestor, Solon, was
the great law-giver of Athens 600 years before the Christian era. Solon visited
Egypt. Plutarch says, "Solon attempted in verse a large description, or rather
fabulous account of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men
of Sais, and which particularly concerned the Athenians; but by reason of his
age, not want of leisure (as Plato would have it), he was apprehensive the work
would be too much for him, and therefore did not go through with it. These
verses are a proof that business was not the hinderance:
"'I grow in learning as I grow in age.'
And again:
"'Wine, wit, and beauty still their charms bestow,
Light all the shades of life, and cheer us as we go.'
"Plato, ambitious to cultivate and adorn the subject of the Atlantic Island,
as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, to which also be had some
claim by reason of his being related to Solon, laid out magnificent courts and
enclosures, and erected a grand entrance to it, such as no other story, fable,
or Poem ever had. But, as he began it late, he ended his life before the work,
so that the more the reader is delighted with the part that is written, the
more regret he has to find it unfinished."
There can be no question that Solon visited Egypt. The causes of his
departure from Athens, for a period of ten years, are fully explained by
Plutarch. He dwelt, be tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There be conversed upon points of philosophy and history with the most
learned of the Egyptian priests. He was a man of extraordinary force and
penetration of mind, as his laws and his sayings, which have been preserved to
us, testify. There is no improbability in the statement that be commenced in
verse a history and description of Atlantis, which be left unfinished at his
death; and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to believe that this
manuscript reached the bands of his successor and descendant, Plato; a scholar,
thinker, and historian like himself, and, like himself, one of the profoundest
minds of the ancient world. the Egyptian priest had said to Solon, "You have no
antiquity of history, and no history of antiquity;" and Solon doubtless
realized fully the vast importance of a record which carried human history
back, not only thousands of years before the era of Greek civilization, but
many thousands of years before even the establishment of the kingdom of Egypt;
and be was anxious to preserve for his half-civilized countrymen this
inestimable record of the past.
We know of no better way to commence a book about Atlantis than by giving in
full the record preserved by Plato. It is as follows:
Critias. Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which is, however,
certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He
was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as be
himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my
grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that there were of old great and
marvellous actions of the Athenians, which have passed into oblivion through
time and the destruction of the human race and one in particular, which was the
greatest of them all, the recital of which will be a suitable testimony of our
gratitude to you....
Socrates. Very good; and what is. this ancient famous action of which
Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action of the Athenian
State, which Solon recounted!
Critias. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged
man; for Critias was, as be said, at that time nearly ninety years of age, and
I was about ten years of age. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is
called the registration of youth; at which, according to custom, our parents
gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us
boys, and many of us sung the poems of Solon, which were new at the time. One
of our tribe, either because this was his real opinion, or because he thought
that he would please Critias, said that, in his judgment, Solon was not only
the wisest of men but the noblest of poets. The old man, I well remember,
brightened up at this, and said, smiling: "Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only,
like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the
tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by
reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in this country
when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion be would have been
as famous as Homer, or Hesiod, or any poet."
"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the person who addressed
him.
"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to
have been most famous, but which, through the lapse of time and the destruction
of the actors, has not come down to us."
"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and bow and from whom Solon
heard this veritable tradition."
He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile
divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and
the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which
Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a deity who is their
foundress: she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, which is asserted by
them to be the same whom the Hellenes called Athene. Now, the citizens of this
city are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. Thither came Solon, who was received by them with great honor;
and be asked the priests, who were most skilful in such matters, about
antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew
anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, when he was
drawing them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient
things in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called 'the first,'
and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to tell of the lives of Deucalion and
Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and attempted to
reckon bow many years old were the events of which he was speaking, and to give
the dates. Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age; said, 'O
Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man who
is an Hellene.' Solon, bearing this, said, 'What do you mean?' 'I mean to say,'
he replied, 'that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed
down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age.
And I will tell you the reason of this: there have been, and there will be
again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes. There is a
story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaëthon, the
son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was
not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon
the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form
of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the
earth and in the heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth
recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the
mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those
who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the Nile, who
is our never-failing savior, saves and delivers us. When, on the other hand,
the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and
shepherds on the mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in
cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country neither at
that time nor at any other does the water come from above on the fields, having
always a tendency to come up from below, for which reason the things preserved
here are said to be the oldest. The fact is, that wherever the extremity of
winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always
increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers. And whatever
happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we
are informed--if any action which is noble or great, or in any other way
remarkable has taken place, all that has been written down of old, and is
preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are just being provided
with letters and the other things which States require; and then, at the usual
period, the stream from heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only
those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and thus you have to
begin all over again as children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient
times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours
which you have recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of
children; for, in the first place, you remember one deluge only, whereas there
were many of them; and, in the next place, you do not know that there dwelt in
your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, of whom you and
your whole city are but a seed or remnant. And this was unknown to you, because
for many generations the survivors of that destruction died and made no sign.
For there was a time, Solon, before that great deluge of all, when the city
which now is Athens was first in war, and was preeminent for the excellence of
her laws, and is said to have performed the noblest deeds, and to have had the
fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of
heaven.' Solon marvelled at this, and earnestly requested the priest to inform
him exactly and in order about these former citizens. 'You are welcome to hear
about them, Solon,' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of
the city; and, above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron
and protector and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand
years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephæstus the seed of
your race, and then she founded ours, the constitution of which is set down in
our sacred registers as 8000 years old. As touching the citizens of 9000 years
ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of the noblest of their
actions; and the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at
our leisure. in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws
with your own, you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours, as
they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests,
which is separated from all the others; next there are the artificers, who
exercise their several crafts by themselves, and without admixture of any
other; and also there is the class of shepherds and that of hunters, as well as
that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are
separated from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law only to
engage in war; moreover, the weapons with which they are equipped are shields
and spears, and this the goddess taught first among you, and then in Asiatic
countries, and we among the Asiatics first adopted.
"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe what care the law took from the very
first, searching out and comprehending the whole order of things down to
prophecy and medicine (the latter with a view to health); and out of these
divine elements drawing what was needful for human life, and adding every sort
of knowledge which was connected with them. All this order and arrangement the
goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the
spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy
temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men.
Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected, and
first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest
herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones,
and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of
the gods. Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your State in our
histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor; for
these histories tell of a mighty power which was aggressing wantonly against
the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power
came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was
navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you
call the Columns of Heracles: the island was larger than Libya and Asia put
together, and was the way to other islands, and from the islands you might pass
through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean;
for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbor, having a
narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be
most truly called a continent. Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a great
and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island and several others,
as well as over parts of the continent; and, besides these, they subjected the
parts of Libya within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as
far as Tyrrhenia. The vast power thus gathered into one, endeavored to subdue
at one blow our country and yours, and the whole of the land which was within
the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of
her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she was the first in courage
and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell
off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very
extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and
preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjected, and freely liberated
all the others who dwelt within the limits of Heracles. But afterward there
occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain
all your warlike men in a body sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis
in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is the
reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there
is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was caused by the
subsidence of the island.' ("Plato's Dialogues," ii., 617, Timæus.) . .
.
"But in addition to the gods whom you have mentioned, I would specially
invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of what I have to tell is
dependent on her favor, and if I can recollect and recite enough of what was
said by the priests, and brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall
satisfy the requirements of this theatre. To that task, then, I will at once
address myself.
"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of
years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place
between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and those who dwelt
within them: this war I am now to describe. Of the combatants on the one side
the city of Athens was reported to have been the ruler, and to have directed
the contest; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of the
islands of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent greater than
that of Libya and Asia; and, when afterward sunk by an earthquake, became an
impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean. The
progress of the history will unfold the various tribes of barbarians and
Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I
must begin by describing, first of all, the Athenians as they were in that day,
and their enemies who fought with them; and I shall have to tell of the power
and form of government of both of them. Let us give the precedence to Athens. .
. .
"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for
that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am
speaking; and in all the ages and changes of things there has never been any
settlement of the earth flowing down from the mountains, as in other places,
which is worth speaking of; it has always been carried round in a circle, and
disappeared in the depths below. The consequence is that, in comparison of what
then was, there are remaining in small islets only the bones of the wasted
body, as they may be called, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having
fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the country being left. . . .
"And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when I was a child, I will
impart to you the character and origin of their adversaries; for friends should
not keep their stories to themselves, but have them in common. Yet, before
proceeding farther in the narrative, I ought to warn you that you must not be
surprised if you should bear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell
you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem,
made an investigation into the meaning of the names, and found that the early
Egyptians, in writing them down, had translated them into their own language,
and be recovered the meaning of the several names and retranslated them, and
copied them out again in our language. My great-grandfather, Dropidas, had the
original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by
me when I was a child. Therefore, if you bear names such as are used in this
country, you must not be surprised, for I have told you the reason of them.
"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows: I have before
remarked, in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the
whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made themselves temples and
sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat
children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island which I
will proceed to describe. On the side toward the sea, and in the centre of the
whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all
plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the
island, at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain, not very
high on any side. In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval
men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe,
and they had an only daughter, who was named Cleito. The maiden was growing up
to womanhood when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her,
and had intercourse with her; and, breaking the ground, enclosed the hill in
which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land, larger and
smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water,
which he turned as with a lathe out of the centre of the island, equidistant
every way, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were
not yet heard of. He himself, as be was a god, found no difficulty in making
special arrangements for the centre island, bringing two streams of water under
the earth, which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm water and the
other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly in the
earth. He also begat and brought up five pairs of male children, dividing the
island of Atlantis into ten portions: he gave to the first-born of the eldest
pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest
and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave
them rule over many men and a large territory. And he named them all: the
eldest, who was king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and the
ocean received the name of Atlantic. To his twin-brother, who was born after
him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island toward the Pillars of
Heracles, as far as the country which is still called the region of Gades in
that part of the world, be gave the name which in the Hellenic language is
Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of
the second pair of twins, he called one Ampheres and the other Evæmon. To
the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus to the elder, and Autochthon
to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder
Elasippus and the younger Mestor, And of the fifth pair be gave to the elder
the name of Azaes, and to the younger Diaprepes. All these and their
descendants were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea;
and also, as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction over
the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a
numerous and honorable family, and his eldest branch always retained the
kingdom, which the eldest son handed on to his eldest for many generations; and
they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and
potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with
everything which they could have, both in city and country. For, because of the
greatness of their empire, many things were brought to them from foreign
countries, and the island itself provided much of what was required by them for
the uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to
be found there, mineral as well as metal, and that which is now only a name,
and was then something more than a name--orichalcum--was dug out of the earth
in many parts of the island, and, with the exception of gold, was esteemed the
most precious of metals among the men of those days. There was an abundance of
wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild
animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and
there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those which live in
lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on
plains, and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of
them. Also, whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots, or
herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers or fruits, grew and thrived
in that land; and again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible
fruit and other species of food, which we call by the general name of legumes,
and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks, and meats, and ointments,
and good store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to play with, and
are fruits which spoil with keeping--and the pleasant kinds of dessert which
console us after dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these that
sacred island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and wondrous in infinite
abundance. All these things they received from the earth, and they employed
themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces, and harbors, and docks;
and they arranged the whole country in the following manner: First of all they
bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made
a passage into and out of they began to build the palace in the royal palace;
and then the habitation of the god and of their ancestors. This they continued
to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who came
before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to
behold for size and for beauty. And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal
three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in
length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from
the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient to
enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided the zones of
land which parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as
would leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and
roofed them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks
of the zones were raised considerably above the water. Now the largest of the
zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth,
and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two, as
well the zone of water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which
surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which
the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia. This, and the zones and
the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by
a stone wall, on either side placing towers, and gates on the bridges where the
sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from
underneath the centre island and from underneath the zones, on the outer as
well as the inner side. One kind of stone was white, another black, and a third
red; and, as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out docks double
within, having roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings
were simple, but in others they put together different stones, which they
intermingled for the sake of ornament, to be a natural source of delight. The
entire circuit of the wall which went round the outermost one they covered with
a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and
the third, which encompassed the citadel flashed with the red light of
orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed in this
wise: In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which
remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the
spot in which they originally begat the race of the ten princes, and thither
they annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten
portions, and performed sacrifices to each of them. Here, too, was Poiseidon's
own temple, of a stadium in length and half a stadium in width, and of a
proportionate height, having a sort of barbaric splendor. All the outside of
the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and
the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory,
adorned everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; all the other parts of
the walls and pillars and floor they lined with orichalcum. In the temple they
placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot--the
charioteer of six winged horses--and of such a size that be touched the roof of
the building with his bead; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on
dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them in that day. There were
also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by
private individuals. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues
of gold of all the ten kings and of their wives; and there were many other
great offerings, both of kings and of private individuals, coming both from the
city itself and the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an
altar, too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to the rest of the work,
and there were palaces in like manner which answered to the greatness of the
kingdom and the glory of the temple.
"In the next place, they used fountains both of cold and hot springs; these
were very abundant, and both kinds wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the
sweetness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about
them, and planted suitable trees; also cisterns, some open to the heaven, other
which they roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths, there were the
king's baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; also
separate baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle, and to them
they gave as much adornment as was suitable for them. The water which ran off
they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of
trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the
remainder was conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer
circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also
gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some set apart for horses, in
both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of
the two there was a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to
extend all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were
guard-houses at intervals for the body-guard, the more trusted of whom had
their duties appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the
Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the
citadel, and about the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes
and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan
of the royal palace. Crossing the outer harbors, which were three in number,
you would come to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was
everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed
the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea. The entire area
was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the
harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from
their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all
sorts night and day. I have repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts
about the ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must endeavor to
describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country. The whole
country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the
sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level
plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended toward the sea; it was
smooth and even, but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three
thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre of
the island two thousand stadia; the whole region of the island lies toward the
south, and is sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains he celebrated
for their number and size and beauty, in which they exceeded all that are now
to be seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy inhabited villages, and
rivers and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or
tame, and wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of work. I will now
describe the plain, which had been cultivated during many ages by many
generations of kings. It was rectangular, and for the most part straight and
oblong; and what it wanted of the straight line followed the line of the
circular ditch. The depth and width and length of this ditch were incredible
and gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so many other works,
could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man. But I must say what I have
heard. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a
stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten
thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the
mountains, and winding round the plain, and touching the city at various
points, was there let off into the sea. From above, likewise, straight canals
of a hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and again let off into the
ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at intervals of a Hundred stadia, and
by them they brought, down the wood from the mountains to the city, and
conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one
canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits
of the earth--in winter having the benefit of the rains, and in summer
introducing the water of the canals. As to the population, each of the lots in
the plain had an appointed chief of men who were fit for military service, and
the size of the lot was to be a square of ten stadia each way, and the total
number of all the lots was sixty thousand.
"And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country
there was also a vast multitude having leaders, to whom they were assigned
according to their dwellings and villages. The leader was required to furnish
for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten
thousand chariots; also two horses and riders upon them, and a light chariot
without a seat, accompanied by a fighting man on foot carrying a small shield,
and having a charioteer mounted to guide the horses; also, be was bound to
furnish two heavy-armed men, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters,
and three javelin men, who were skirmishers, and four sailors to make up a
complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the order of war in the royal
city--that of the other nine governments was different in each of them, and
would be wearisome to narrate. As to offices and honors, the following was the
arrangement from the first: Each of the ten kings, in his own division and in
his own city, had the absolute control of the citizens, and in many cases of
the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever be would.
"Now the relations of their governments to one another were regulated by the
injunctions of Poseidon as the law had handed them down. These were inscribed
by the first men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of
the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the people were gathered
together every fifth and sixth years alternately, thus giving equal honor to
the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they
consulted about public affairs, and inquired if any one had transgressed in
anything, and passed judgment on him accordingly--and before they passed
judgment they gave their pledges to one another in this wise: There were bulls
who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone in
the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might take the
sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but
with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the
column; the victim was then struck on the head by them, and slain over the
sacred inscription, Now on the column, besides the law, there was inscribed an
oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When, therefore, after offering
sacrifice according to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of the bull,
they mingled a cup and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of
the victim they took to the fire, after having made a purification of the
column all round. Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels, and, pouring a
libation on the fire, they swore t hat they would judge according to the laws
on the column, and would punish any one who had previously transgressed, and
that for the future they would not, if they could help, transgress any of the
inscriptions, and would not command or obey any ruler who commanded them to act
otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the
prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his family, at the
same time drinking, and dedicating the vessel in the temple of the god; and,
after spending some necessary time at supper, when darkness came on and the
fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure
robes, and, sitting on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifices on
which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they
received and gave judgement, if any of them had any accusation to bring against
any one; and, when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their
sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials with their robes.
There were many special laws which the several kings had inscribed about the
temples, but the most important was the following: That they were not to take
up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one
in any city attempted to over. throw the royal house. Like their ancestors,
they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the
supremacy to the family of Atlas; and the king was not to have the power of
life and death over any of his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the
majority of the ten kings.
"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of
Atlantis; and this he afterward directed against our land on the following
pretext, as traditions tell: For many generations, as long as the divine nature
lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned toward the
gods, who were their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great
spirits, practising gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and
in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, not
caring for their present state of life, arid thinking lightly on the possession
of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were
they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control;
but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by
virtuous friendship with one another, and that by excessive zeal for them, and
honor of them, the good of them is lost, and friendship perishes with them.
"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, all
that which we have described waxed and increased in them; but when this divine
portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted too often, and with too
much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper-hand, then,
they being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an
eye to see, they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of their
precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they
still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with
unrighteous avarice and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and
is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a
most wretched state, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might
be chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his most holy
habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, sees all things
that partake of generation. And when he had called them together he spake as
follows:"
[Here Plato's story abruptly ends.]
The Gods of the Phoenicians Were Also Kings of Atlantis
Not alone were the gods of the Greeks the deified kings of Atlantis, but we
find that the mythology of the Phoenicians was drawn from the same
source.
For instance, we find in the Phoenician cosmogony that the Titans
(Rephaim) derive their origin from the Phoenician gods Agrus and Agrotus.
This connects the Phoenicians with that island in the remote west, in the
midst of ocean, where, according to the Greeks, the Titans dwelt.
According to Sanchoniathon, Ouranos was the son of Autochthon, and,
according to Plato, Autochthon was one of the ten kings of Atlantis. He married
his sister Ge. He is the Uranos of the Greeks, who was the son of
Gæa (the earth), whom he married. The Phoenicians tell us,
"Ouranos had by Ge four sons: Ilus (El), who is called Chronos, and Betylus
(Beth-El), and Dagon, which signifies bread-corn, and Atlas (Tammuz?)." Here,
again, we have the names of two other kings of Atlantis. These four sons
probably represented four races, the offspring of the earth. The Greek Uranos
was the father of Chronos, and the ancestor of Atlas. The Phoenician god
Ouranos had a great many other wives: his wife Ge was jealous; they quarrelled,
and he attempted to kill the children he had by her. This is the legend which
the Greeks told of Zeus and Juno. In the Phoenician mythology Chronos
raised a rebellion against Ouranos, and, after a great battle, dethroned him.
In the Greek legends it is Zeus who attacks and overthrows his father, Chronos.
Ouranos had a daughter called Astarte (Ashtoreth), another called Rhea. "And
Dagon, after he had found out bread-corn and the plough, was called
Zeus-Arotrius."
We find also, in the Phoenician legends, mention made of Poseidon,
founder and king of Atlantis.
Chronos gave Attica to his daughter Athena, as in the Greek legends. In a
time of plague be sacrificed his son to Ouranos, and "circumcised himself, and
compelled his allies to do the same thing." It would thus appear that this
singular rite, practised as we have seen by the Atlantidæ of the Old and
New Worlds, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Ethiopians,
the Mexicans, and the red men of America, dates back, as we might have
expected, to Atlantis.
"Chronos visits the different regions of the habitable world."
He gave Egypt as a kingdom to the god Taaut, who had invented the alphabet.
The Egyptians called him Thoth, and he was represented among them as "the god
of letters, the clerk of the under-world," bearing a tablet, pen, and
palm-branch.
This not only connects the Phoenicians with Atlantis, but shows the
relations of Egyptian civilization to both Atlantis and the
Phoenicians.
There can be no doubt that the royal personages who formed the gods of
Greece were also the gods of the Phoenicians. We have seen the Autochthon
of Plato reappearing in the Autochthon of the Phoenicians; the Atlas of
Plato in the Atlas of the Phoenicians; the Poseidon of Plato in the
Poseidon of the Phoenicians; while the kings Mestor and Mneseus of Plato
are probably the gods Misor and Amynus of the Phoenicians.
Sanchoniathon tells us, after narrating all the discoveries by which the
people advanced to civilization, that the Cabiri set down their records of the
past by the command of the god Taaut, "and they delivered them to their
successors and to foreigners, of whom one was Isiris (Osiris), the inventor of
the three letters, the brother of Chua, who is called the first
Phoenician." (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Ancient History of the East,"
vol. ii., p. 228.)
This would show that the first Phoenician came long after this line of
the kings or gods, and that he was a foreigner, as compared with them; and,
therefore, that it could not have been the Phoenicians proper who made the
several inventions narrated by Sanchoniathon, but some other race, from whom
the Phoenicians might have been descended.
And in the delivery of their records to the foreigner Osiris, the god of
Egypt, we have another evidence that Egypt derived her civilization from
Atlantis.
There was an ancient tradition among the Persians that the Phoenicians
migrated from the shores of the Erythræan Sea, and this has been supposed
to mean the Persian Gulf; but there was a very old city of Erythia, in utter
ruin in the time of Strabo, which was built in some ancient age, long before
the founding of Gades, near the site of that town, on the Atlantic coast of
Spain. May not this town of Erythia have given its name to the adjacent sea?
And this may have been the starting-point of the Phoenicians in their
European migrations. It would even appear that there was an island of Erythea.
In the Greek mythology the tenth labor of Hercules consisted in driving away
the cattle of Geryon, who lived in the island of Erythea, "an island somewhere
in the remote west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules." (Murray's
"Mythology," p. 257.) Hercules stole the cattle from this remote oceanic
island, and, returning drove them "through Iberia, Gaul, over the Alps, and
through Italy." (Ibid.) It is probable that a people emigrating from the
Erythræan Sea, that is, from the Atlantic, first gave their name to a
town on the coast of Spain, and at a later date to the Persian Gulf--as we have
seen the name of York carried from England to the banks of the Hudson, and then
to the Arctic Circle.
The builders of the Central American cities are reported to have been a
bearded race. The Phoenicians, in common with the Indians, practised human
sacrifices to a great extent; they worshipped fire and water, adopted the names
of the animals whose skins they wore--that is to say, they had the totemic
system--telegraphed by means of fires, poisoned their arrows, offered peace
before beginning battle, and used drums. (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v.,
p. 77.)
The extent of country covered by the commerce of the Phoenicians
represents to some degree the area of the old Atlantean Empire. Their colonies
and trading-posts extended east and west from the shores of the Black Sea,
through the Mediterranean to the west coast of Africa and of Spain, and around
to Ireland and England; while from north to south they ranged from the Baltic
to the Persian Gulf. They touched every point where civilization in later ages
made its appearance. Strabo estimated that they had three hundred cities along
the west coast of Africa. When Columbus sailed to discover a new world, or
re-discover an old one, he took his departure from a Phoenician seaport,
founded by that great race two thousand five hundred years previously. This
Atlantean sailor, with his Phoenician features, sailing from an Atlantean
port, simply re-opened the path of commerce and colonization which had been
closed when Plato's island sunk in the sea. And it is a curious fact that
Columbus had the antediluvian world in his mind's eye even then, for when he
reached the mouth of the Orinoco he thought it was the river Gihon, that flowed
out of Paradise, and he wrote home to Spain, "There are here great indications
suggesting the proximity of the earthly Paradise, for not only does it
correspond in mathematical position with the opinions of the holy and learned
theologians, but all other signs concur to make it probable."
Sanchoniathon claims that the learning of Egypt, Greece, and Judæa was
derived from the Phoenicians. It would appear probable that, while other
races represent the conquests or colonizations of Atlantis, the
Phoenicians succeeded to their arts, sciences, and especially their
commercial supremacy.
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