Plato's Atlantis in Timaeus

Plato's dialogue 'Timaeus' was written ca. 360 BC
Antlantis and Solon the Law-Builder
Critias: Listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true. It was attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative of my great-grandfather, Dropides, and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us.
Socrates: Very good . . . Not a mere legend, but an actual fact?
Critias: I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was . . . nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. One of our tribe said that in his judgement Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man (Critias) brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling:
"Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only . . . completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, . . . he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod."
Old, great actions of Greece were recorded in Egypt, said Solon
"And what was the tale about, Critias?" said Amynander. About the greatest action . . . through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us."
"Tell us . . . how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition."
He replied: "In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which 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. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them.
To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world - about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants. On this one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said:
"O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children."
Solon in return asked him what he meant.
"I mean to say," he replied, "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. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.
There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, 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 in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth - at such times 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 seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, - the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.
The fact is, that . . . whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed - if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples.
After the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down and leaves you destitute of letters and education; you have to begin all over again like children. As for those genealogies of yours, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children.
In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. The survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word.
Well, there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and said to have performed the noblest deeds".
Solon marvelled, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly.
The Athenian constitution, from a goddess
"You are welcome to hear about them, Solon," said the priest, "above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago,.
If you compare the Athens laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours. In the first place, there is the caste of priests; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen. And you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes,.
Observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, deriving what was needful for human life, adding all sorts of knowledge which was akin to them.
The goddess saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in your land would produce the wisest of men. So the goddess, a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men most like herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue."
The story of a wonderful empire: adamant Atlantis
The Egyptian priest went on,
"Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition 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 are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.
Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent 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 subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars.
But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.
The sacred, recovered Egyptian record
I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us. A long time had elapsed, but on my way home yesterday I communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it - I recovered nearly the whole it.
The lessons of our childhood make wonderful impression on our memories.
When I was young I listened to the old man's narrative with childlike interest and asked him again and again to repeat his words. And like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. [Link]
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