01.23
Plato, one of the fathers of western thought, is our sole direst source for the legend of Atlantis. His fragmentary account of the continent that was swallowed up by the sea still excites the modern mind.
Plato’s Atlantis was as kind of paradise – a vast island ‘larger than Libya and Asia put together’ – with magnificant mountain ranges, lush plains which teemed with every variety of animal, including elephants, and luxuriant gardens where the fruit was ‘fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance’.
The earth was rich with precious metals, especially the one prized most highly by the ancients, the fabulous, iridescent orichalc, an alloy of copper, perhaps brass. The capital of Atlantis, built in the very centre of the island, was remarkable for the scale and splendour of its public buildings which were designed in an architecturally harmonious blend of white, black and red stone.
Even more extraordinary, perhaps, was the plan on which the city had been laid out. It was arranged in five zones built in perfect concentric circles. Its various ports were served by a system of canals. Plato says that the capital’s canal and its nearby port were ‘full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din clatter… night and day’.
At the heart of the city were the great palace and the temple, which was in more sumptuous: ‘All the outside, 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, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver orichalc; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalc.
In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot – a charioteer with six winged horses – and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building wih his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins…’
This charioteer was none other than the God of the Sea and Shaker of the Earth, Poseidon. When he and his divine brothers Zues and Hades divided the world between them, Atlantis fell to Poseidon’s lot. He became the all-powerful lord of the island which he peopled with his sons, a virtuos race touched with divinity.
The ten kings of Atlantis were immensely rich and powerful but ruled wisely over the enormous colonial empire they built. Numberless generations of Atlanteans lived in peace under a system of laws which had been handed down to them by Poseidon and whose justness comanded universal admiration. These laws were ‘inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalc, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon’.
But in the end, Atlantean society began to decay. The people started to worship the false gods of wealth, idleness and luxury.
Plato, ever a pessimist about human nature, write: ‘When the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature gained the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved in an unseemly manner, and to him who had an eye to see, grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest to their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.’
It was during this era of corruption that the Atlanteans embarked on a war of world conquest, launching huge fleets against other islands and enslaving the inhabitants of the coastal settlements of the Mediteranean. The only power that could stand against them was Athens, the city dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom, industry and war. The Atlantean hoplites, or heavy infantry, succeeded in stemming the tide of invasion and won a brilliant victory.
But this setback was not enough. The gods had perpared a terrible retribution for the men who betrayed the ancient faith of Atlantis.
Plato takes up the story: ‘Afterwards there occured violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune… the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea.’
According to Plato’s version, all this happened in remote antiquity, some 12,000 years ago. He located Atlantis in the Great Ocean, the Western Sea whose swelling waves rose beyond the Pillars of Hercules which we know today as the Straits of Gibraltar.
Many of the arguments that have subsequently raged about the existence and geographical position of Atlantis stem from this space-time location.