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PLATO'S HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
by Ignatius Donnelly
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 hands 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 how 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 he touched the roof of the building with his head; 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 that 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 judgment, 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.]
Suggested Reading
Source:
Chapter 2 from the Atlantis, the Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly
[1882]. The material has been reformatted for easy reading by Jayaram V
for Hinduwebsite.com
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