Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained.
In today’s video, we’re going to dive into the story of the lost city of Atlantis.
More than eleven thousand years ago the nations of the Mediterranean were attacked by a dominant
naval power, hailing from outside the Pillars of Heracles.
These invading Atlanteans sought to enslave all peoples within the pillars, only to be
thwarted at the final hour by the Hellenes, the virtuous ancestors of the ancient Greeks
who trace their lineage back to Athena herself.
Though the Mediterranean was freed from subjugation, the conflict was not punctuated by a resounding
victory but by the opening of the earth’s cavernous and gnashing jaws - this unleashing
sundering quakes and swallowing floods.
In the resulting cataclysm, all the fighting men of the Hellenes sank into the earth, and:
“…in a single day and night of misfortune…
the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared into the depths of the sea.”
Alright, Let’s get into it.
The story of Atlantis is preserved in the form of two dialogues by Plato, the Timaeus
and the Critias, written circa 360 BC.
The dialogues contain nested narratives passed down orally for over 200 years, and we’ll
read from the core narrative today.
It follows Solon, a law-maker and poet of ancient Athens, who traveled to Egypt around
600 BC, and there learned of his own people’s history from an agéd Egyptian priest.
Solon’s account of these teachings, which are the earliest references to Atlantis in
the literary record, are summarized in the "Timaeus" and detailed in the "Critias", though
the latter dialogue survives only in part.
In the "Timaeus", the story of Atlantis is introduced, albeit briefly.
Both dialogues feature Socrates in conversation with three interlocutors - Timaeus, Critias,
and Hermocrates.
(Interlocutor, if you didn’t know, is a formal word that denotes a participant in
a conversation or dialogue.)
Timaeus, a Pythagorean philosopher, is the primary speaker in the first dialogue, though
he does not speak on Atlantis, instead presenting a complex and allegorical account of the creation
of the universe, the Earth, human beings, and the cosmos.
Critias, an Athenian politician and older relative of Plato, summarizes the story of
Atlantis in the first dialogue and elaborates upon it in the second dialogue.
The third dialogue, to be the "Hermocrates", is either lost to time or was never written
at all.
The day before these dialogues took place, Socrates had discussed the set of laws that
would bring forth the ideal State, which is covered is Plato's "Republic".
Today, he asks for an example of those laws in action.
Hermocrates mentions a story he heard from Critias that he believes will satisfy Socrates'
request.
Critias then gives his abbreviated account of the story, passed down to him from Solon,
the famous Athenian lawmaker, poet, and one of the "Seven Sages" of Ancient Greece.
The story tells how the lost city of Atlantis invaded the Mediterranean some 12,000 years
ago, only to be repelled by the proto-Athenians, who lived according to laws similar to those
laid down by Socrates in "Republic".
In the "Critias", the titular character delves into much more detail on Atlantis, including
its inhabitants, geography, and customs.
He describes Atlantis as an ancient civilization with remarkable technology, social structure,
and military power, which was located beyond the "Pillars of Heracles".
They were descended from Poseidon, but over generations their noble blood became diluted
with mortal admixture, leading to excessive pride and ambition.
For the crime of their invasion, Atlantis incurred the wrath of the gods, and was sunk
into the sea in "a single day and night of misfortune".
Unfortunately, the full text of the "Critias" has not survived, cutting off just as Zeus
is about to speak.
Given that the entirety of "Hermocrates" is absent as well, we don't know how the full
trilogy would have looked.
Timaeus provides the cosmological backdrop and Critias presents the historical account
of the rise and fall of Atlantis, but we can only speculate about the content of the third
dialogue.
The only time poor Hermocrates gets to speak is when he suggests that Critias tell the
Atlantis story.
What’s important to understand right now is the chain of custody the story of Atlantis
purportedly went through.
In both the "Timaeus" and the "Critias" dialogues, the story of Atlantis is claimed to originate
from ancient Egyptian priests, who had it from their own ancestors in written form.
The priests were the keepers of ancient wisdom and histories in Egypt, preserving knowledge
from times even before their own civilization.
Solon traveled to Egypt sometime around 600 BC.
The Egyptian priests shared the story of Atlantis with him.
Solon was fascinated by the tale and intended to translate it into a poem for the Athenian
audience, but he didn't complete this work.
Upon his return to Athens, Solon relayed the story to his friend Dropides, who passed it
onto his son, Critias the elder, who then passed the story to his grandson, the Critias
featured in Plato's dialogues.
Moving forward, the story of the lost city of Atlantis will be told from the perspective
of the characters present when it was, according to Plato’s dialogues, first imparted from
the Ancient Egyptians to the Ancient Greeks.
Characters like Solon of Athens will feature prominently, and interlocutors like Timaeus
and Critias will fade into the background.
We join Solon of Athens in Egypt in the city of Sais at the temple of Neith, where he speaks
with Sonchis of Sais, an aged priest.
Sais was an ancient Egyptian city located in the Nile River Delta, and it was said to
have been founded by Neith, an Egyptian goddess whom the Greeks identified with Athena, the
goddess said to have founded Athens.
Sais and Athens being founded by cognate Goddesses made them, in a fashion, sister-cities, thus
Solon was welcomed with open arms and granted supervised access to the sacred registers
of history preserved in the temple of Neith.
Wishing to hear more of antiquity from the priests, Solon begins by sharing his most
ancient Hellenic knowledge, thinking this will prompt reciprocation.
He starts with Phoroneus, who, according to Plato’s dialogues, was called the “First
Man” by the Hellenes.
He then tells of Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, who survived the great deluge alongside his
wife Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus, and of their descendants who repopulated the Earth.
As Solon tries to compute from these genealogies how long ago the Deucalion Deluge must have
happened, Sonchis stops him.
We now read directly from the "Timaeus" for Sonchis’ reply:
“O Solon… you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man
among you.
In mind you are all young.”
When Solon asks Sonchis why he would say this, Sonchis replies that:
“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 why.
There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the
greatest have been brought about by the agencies of 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 Phaethon, the son of
Helios, having yoked the steeds of 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
in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which
recurs after long intervals; 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 savior, delivers and preserves
us.”
So what you believe as myth, Sonchis told Solon, is actually a record of specific astronomical
events.
Furthermore, the resulting cataclysm that you think scorched the whole world only affected
certain regions that were susceptible - and that Egypt was not one of them, spared not
by divine intervention but by favorable geography.
Sonchis continues: “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, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the
traditions preserved here are the most ancient.”
Here, Sonchis claims first that the low-lying placement of Sais, in the Nile River Delta,
has protected it from cataclysms by fire from above, and second that sufficient distance
from mountains or plateaus has protected it from destruction by flood-waters or melt-waters
as well.
He continues: “The fact is, that wherever the extremity
of winter frost or of summer [sun] does not prevent, mankind exists, sometimes in greater,
sometimes in lesser numbers.
And whatever happened either in your country or in ours… 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.
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and
the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven,
like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute
of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and
know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.”
So not only has everyone but the Egyptians lost their histories, Sonchis claims, they
have also lost all record of their material cultures and technologies, all the way down
to the ability to write.
Driving his point home, Sonchis continues: “As for those genealogies of yours which
you just now recounted to us, 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.
And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction
died, leaving no written word.
For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is
Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, [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.”
Here Sonchis cites a very ancient people, the heroes of this video.
He asserts them as the forebears of the Greeks and claims that they were greater and fairer
even than his own Egyptian forebears.
We will hereafter call them proto-Athenians, to differentiate them from the Athenians of
Solon’s time.
Solon is struck by this revelation, and he asks Sonchis “to inform him exactly and
in order about these former citizens”.
Sonchis replies, once again honoring Neith-Athena: "You are welcome to hear about them, Solon…
for your own sake and for that of your city, and 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, I will briefly inform you of their
laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter
go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves.”
Sonchis goes on to describe the social hierarchy of the proto-Athenians and how closely their
laws match those of his own ancestors, the pre-dynastic Egyptians.
According to sources, Solon was indeed taught at length from the sacred registers of Sais,
and he planned to write it all down in beautiful verse, but maddeningly he was diverted by
matters of state and law-making, and died before he could complete this plan.
Critias, the interlocutor whose lines we have been quoting, claims that if Solon had “made
poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt…
he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.”
Sonchis will now expound on the location of proto-Athens, as he did for Sais, going on
to recount the most valorous achievement of the proto-Athenians, which was their defeat
of the invading army of Atlantis that sought to subjugate the whole of the Mediterranean:
“All this order and arrangement the Goddess [Athena] 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 [was becoming of] 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, 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.
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…
This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored 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.”
And there we have the most famous words on Atlantis, attributed to Plato, of its defeat
by the proto-Athenians and of its destruction in a single day and night of misfortune.
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