Atlantis: The Making of Myth 9780773592766

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
The Enigma of Atlantis
Plato and the Cast of Characters
The Historical Aspect of Greek Myth
Plato and Myth
The Atlantic Location
Alternative Sites for Atlantis
Volcanoes and Thera
The Excavations on Thera
Minoan Crete and Atlantis
The Platonic Synthesis
The Lure of Atlantis
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Citation preview

Although written over two thousand years ago by the Greek philosopher Plato, the tale of the lost island of Atlantis has seized the imagination of man throughout the ages and continues to fascinate us today. Is the legend of Atlantis true? Or was it a tale entirely invented by the Greek philosopher? To come to a conclusion on its historical reality, Professor Forsyth looks closely at both the ancient myth, the one left to us by Plato in the Timaeus and the Critias, and its modern versions, from that of the Diffusionist Ignatius Donnelly to that of the geologist A. G. Galanopoulos. The ancient tale is placed in the context of Greek myth generally, and other myths found in the works of Plato are analysed to determine how Plato himself regarded myth. In a critical synthesis of the later proposals concerning Atlantis, Professor Forsyth uses the resources of modern geology to refute some theories and uphold others. Much attention is focused on the Minoan hypothesis, according to which Atlantis is but a vague memory of Minoan Crete, whose sophisticated Bronze Age civilization seems to have been brought to an end as a result of a violent eruption on the volcano Thera some i r o kilometres to the north. The geological phenomena of volcanic activity are examined in detail, as are the archaeological discoveries made on the island of Thera by Spyridon Marinatos from 1967 to 1 973. Nevertheless, even a Cretan civilization mortally wounded by a destructive volcano is not enough in itself to explain the true genesis of the Platonic tale. In the final part of the book Professor Forsyth returns to the life of Plato and suggests sources for the tale more immediate to his time, notably in Sicily. The story of Atlantis, the author reveals, was composed by Plato for a clear didactic purpose— to make a philosophical point to a contemporary political figure, Dionysius II of Syracuse. Phyllis Young Forsyth is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario.

w

ATLANTIS The Making of Myth Phyllis Young Forsyth

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal

Croom Helm London

©McGill—Queen's University Press ig8o I 020 Pine Avenue West, Montreal H3A IA2 ISBN 0-7735-0355-2 Legal deposit grd quarter 1980 Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec Croom Helm Ltd., 2-10 St. John's Road, London SW i i ISBN 0-7099-1000-2 Designed by Naoto Kondo Printed in Canada This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE

I The Enigma of Atlantis 2 Plato and the Cast of Characters 3 The Historical Aspect of Greek Myth 4 Plato and Myth 5 The Atlantic Location 6 Alternative Sites for Atlantis 7 Volcanoes and Thera 8 The Excavations on Thera g Minoan Crete and Atlantis ro The Platonic Synthesis I I The Lure of Atlantis NOTES

vii Ix I 31 45 59 79 97 1 15 143 159 169 183 187

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

1 99

INDEX

205

Illustrations

Plates

between pages 142 and 143

Thera : The Modern Town of Phira with Pumice Layers Visible Beyond Thera: The Caldera and Its Encircling Cliffs Thera: A General View over the Minoan Ruins at Akrotiri Thera: A Crumbled Stairway in the Minoan Settlement at Akrotiri, the Result of the Earthquake and Eruption Thera: The West House and Plaza in the Minoan Settlement at Akrotiri Thera : Frescoed Room with Boxing Children and Antelopes, courtesy of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Science (TAP Service), Athens Knossos: The North Porch at the Palace of Minos, with Its Bull Fresco Visible behind the Restored Columns Knossos: The Western Magazines of the Palace of Minos The Plain of Messara, Crete: A View from the Palace at Phaestos Syracuse: A View from the Epipolae Heights, courtesy of W. R. Martin Figures

i. The Empire of Atlantis, after Donnelly 2. The World according to Plato

5 13

viii

Illustrations

3. The Royal City of Atlantis

21

4. Pangaea, after R. S. Dietz and J. C. Holden

94

5. Thera

129

6. The Eastern Mediterranean

135

7. The Islands of Crete and Thera

163

8. Sicily

17o

g. The Ancient City of Syracuse, after William Smith

171

Preface The genesis of this book dates back to 1969, when I first became fascinated by the excavations being conducted on Thera by Spyridon Marinatos. Fascination then turned into an academic obsession in 1972, when I made my first visit to Crete and fell under the spell of the Minoans. Gradually, as the Atlantis-Crete-Thera equation spread in the popular media, I developed the idea of approaching the topic by way of the study of Plato and his use of myth. In 1975, and again in 1977, I experimented with this approach in a course I offered at the University of Waterloo. A sabbatical leave in 1978 finally made possible the writing of the manuscript. My thanks are owed to several people who provided both information and encouragement. I am especially grateful to three members of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Waterloo, C. R. Barnes, A. Morgan, and J. Greenhouse, for their assistance and tolerance as I entered the realm of plate tectonics. To my colleagues and students in classical studies at the University of Waterloo I am also grateful for helpful criticism. Laurel wreaths are due to Catherine Edwards, for helping to type the manuscript, and to Bonnie Eykens, who not only typed, but also added her enthusiasm just when I needed it most. Finally, the debt I owe my husband, James J. Forsyth, is immense and inexpressible: he came to share my love for all things Minoan and to give me support in every possible way as the work progressed ; I doubt that the book would ever have been written without him, and so to him it is lovingly dedicated. I would like to thank the following publishers for permission to quote from their publications: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, for G. M. A. Grube's translation of Plato's

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Preface

Republic (1974); E. P. Dutton, New York, for A. E. Taylor's translation of Plato's Laws (Everyman's Library, 1934), and for Richard Crawley's translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (Everyman's Library, 1963) ; Random House, Inc., New York, for George Rawlinson's translation of Herodotus' The Persian Wars (edited by F. R. B. Godolphin, © Random House Inc. 1942) ; Springer-Verlag, New York, for Geological Hazards by B. A. Bolt, W. L. Horn, G. A. Macdonald, and R. F. Scott (1977) ; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, for Lost Continents by L. Sprague de Camp (197o) ; W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, for the Scientific American reprint, Continents Adrift and Continents Aground (1976) ; Multimedia Publishing Corp. (Steinerbooks) , New York, for Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly (1971) ; McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, for Volcanoes and Earthquakes by G. B. Oakeshott (1976) ; Noyes Press, New Jersey, for Guide to Cretan Antiquities by Costis Davaras (1976) ; Indiana University Press, Bloomington, for Legends of the Earth by D. B. Vitaliano (1973 )

1

The Enigma of Atlantis A HISTORICAL SURVEY

The name "Atlantis" has exercised a curious fascination on the human mind for centuries. Ever since the time of Plato, the Greek philosopher who first wrote about the lost island, men and women have debated, often heatedly, the reality behind the tale. Those who assert that Atlantis actually existed are often dismissed as lunatics by those who view the entire tale as an early attempt at writing science fiction. One can only sympathize with the beleaguered librarian faced with yet another book on Atlantis: should it be catalogued under "fact" or "fiction"? The controversy over the truth behind Atlantis seems so far to have resulted in a stalemate. We today appear to be no closer to the "truth" than the ancient Greeks themselves: we need only realize that the philosopher Aristotle, himself a pupil of Plato, considered the entire Platonic account of Atlantis pure fiction; on the other hand, Grantor, a scholar who edited Plato's Timaeus in which the tale occurred, claimed that every word about Atlantis was true.' Thus, even those who were much closer in time and place to Plato himself were unable to agree on the historicity of his account of the lost island in the Atlantic Ocean. Even if the ancient Greeks could not agree, however, they began the lively debate that was to persist into the twentieth century and which resulted in literally thousands of books purporting to solve the mystery of Atlantis. Indeed, there were times when the solution to the problem seemed totally secure : for example, after the voyage of Columbus to a "New World," thousands of people were convinced that America was Plato's lost Atlantis. The fact that Atlantis was

2

Chapter One

supposed to have sunk into the ocean and was no longer visible on the face of the earth did not deter such believers; they simply explained that America-Atlantis had arisen from the depths just as suddenly as it was said to have gone down, or, alternatively, that the extant American continent was only a remnant of a larger Atlantean landmass, still submerged in the Atlantic. And so, at about this time, "Atlantis" became historical enough to appear on maps produced by various French, Italian, and Iberian explorers. Men of letters saw in the growing belief in a historical Atlantis an opportunity to promote their own ideas on utopias or ideal states: Sir Thomas More, for example, composed his Utopia as a political parable, only to discover that many of his readers took his work literally, one even urging More to dispatch Christian missionaries to ensure the salvation of the Utopians. Sir Francis Bacon went even further than More in capitalizing on "Atlanto-mania": in his (unfinished) New Atlantis, Bacon wrote about a distant island in the South Seas which was inhabited by Atlanteans; it seems that these people were forced to flee from their original homeland of Atlantis, which was of course situated in America, when it was obliterated in a great catastrophe. Fiction though it clearly was, the New Atlantis, like other utopian literature, fanned the flames of a growing fascination with Atlantis. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries belief in Atlantis continued to spread as exploration of the Americas became more extensive. A moving force was the study of native American civilizations: as European explorers came into contact with the remains of sophisticated Amerind civilizations, they were at a loss to explain the far from primitive achievements of these peoples. Rather than give credit to the natives themselves, these explorers found it more palatable to believe that the American Indians were somehow connected with the now-lost advanced civilization of Atlantis. This view derived support from the writings of men such as Diego de Landa, who recorded that "some of the old people of Yucatan claim to have heard from their ancestors that this land was settled by people from the east whom God had liberated by cutting twelve paths for them through the sea."2 Landa himself concluded that the native Amerinds were likely the lost tribes of Israel, and later followers of this theory were eager to postulate that these "Jews" had migrated to the New World by way of Atlantis. By the late nineteenth century the atmosphere had been created for a major "boom" in Atlantean studies, and the prophet of this movement was the American scholar and politician Ignatius Donnelly. Although best known today for his work The Great Cryptogram, in

The Enigma of Atlantis

3

which he claimed that Shakespeare's works had been written by none other than Sir Francis Bacon, Donnelly wrote a book that became the Bible of believers in Atlantis: he called it Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882 ) . There could be no doubt as to Donnelly's total belief in the existence of Atlantis after reading his preface and thirteen propositions: r . That there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, a large island, which was the remnant of an Atlantic continent, and known to the ancient world as Atlantis. 2. That the description of this island given by Plato is not, as has been long supposed, fable, but veritable history. 3. That Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state of barbarism to civilization. 4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose overflowings the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations. 5. That it was the true Antediluvian world; the Garden of Eden; the Gardens of the Hesperides; the Elysian Fields; the Gardens of Alcinous; the Mesomphalos; the Olympos; the Asgard of the traditions of the ancient nations; representing a universal memory of a great land, where early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness. 6. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology are a confused recollection of real historical events. 7. That the mythology of Egypt and Peru represented the original religion of Atlantis, which was sun-worship. 8. That the oldest colony formed by the Atlanteans was probably in Egypt, whose civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic island. g. That the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived from Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers of iron. r o. That the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets, was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.

4

Chapter One I 1. That Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or IndoEuropean family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly also of the Turanian races. 12. That Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its inhabitants. t 3. That a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts, and carried to the nations east and west the tidings of the appalling catastrophe, which has survived to our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends of the different nations of the old and new worlds.$

In essence Donnelly's hypothesis was built upon the theory of diffusion of culture: according to this school of thought, cultural innovations had but one centre of origin from which they gradually spread out, diffusing to other peoples. Hence, the wheel was believed to have been invented in one place, later to have spread to other cultures; indeed, civilization itself was given one point of origin from which it diffused elsewhere. This school had no room for any theory of evolution of culture, according to which cultural innovations could have arisen independently in many separate areas. Evolutionists argue that the wheel could have been invented more than once, by different people at different times in different places; civilization itself could have arisen independently among various peoples, with no single point of origin. Donnelly was a convinced Diffusionist, and he spent years studying the cultural resemblances between the Old and New Worlds. Noting certain similarities in art, customs, plant and animal life, and religious rites, Donnelly postulated that the original culture of mankind arose in Atlantis from which it spreads eastwards to Europe and westwards to America. His method can best be illustrated with reference to pyramid architecture: there are pyramids in Egypt, pyramids in America; therefore, pyramids existed in Atlantis, the point of diffusion. Donnelly, like any Diffusionist, could not accept that two cultures might independently create the pyramid; there had to be one point of origin and that must have been Atlantis, roughly equidistant from both the Old and New Worlds. The impact of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World was immense, and by the early t goos numerous "clubs" existed, all dedicated to literal acceptance of Plato's Atlantis, embellished, however, with increasingly fantastic additions. By this time interest in Atlantis was becoming more and more the province of the occult; serious scholars, such as anthropologists and historians, were washing their hands of

r. The Empire of Atlantis, after Donnelly

6

Chapter One

the entire matter, convinced of the mythical nature of Plato's account. The more these scholars, however, rejected the authenticity of Atlantis, the more the occultists were convinced of its existence, perhaps seeing in the "establishment's" dismissal an attempt to hide the "true facts" from them. The scientific establishment was actually turned away from further study of the problem of Atlantis because of numerous hoaxes perpetrated to prove the reality of the lost island. As often happens, people seeking attention for themselves used "Atlantis" as a vehicle, and thereby did great harm to serious investigation of the matter. A good illustration is furnished by the celebrated hoax associated with a man who claimed to be Paul Schliemann, the grandson of Heinrich Schliemann, the famous excavator of Troy and Mycenae. In 1912 this young man entered the Atlantis controversy by maintaining that his illustrious grandfather had obtained a peculiar vase with an owlshaped top in which were found unique square coins. There was also a metallic plate bearing a Phoenician inscription that allegedly read "Issued in the Temple of Transparent Walls." As if all this were not enough, "Schliemann" also had, he claimed, knowledge of a vase from Troy with the inscription "From King Kronos of Atlantis."4 When investigators demanded to see these items, "Schliemann" played coy; in the end, the entire affair was revealed as a hoax, and a search of Schliemann family records showed that no grandson by the name of Paul Schliemann ever existed. This unhappy affair naturally brought discredit to the entire body of Atlantis investigators, and those who continued to argue for a real Atlantis were increasingly the objects of scientific disdain. Meanwhile the occult approach to Atlantis was flourishing. The occultists, after all, had sources of information denied to ordinary people, such as the spirit voices of the Atlanteans themselves. With the eager assistance of their "spiritual masters," the occultists brought before the world an incredible view of life on ancient Atlantis. Depending on their particular allegiances, the occultists attributed to Atlantis such items as the airplane, atomic weapons, astral projection, and even space travel. The doyen of Atlantean occultists was undoubtedly Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society in the late nineteenth century. Blavatsky was a charismatic figure who managed to convince a great many people of her special ability to penetrate the enigmas of existence. In true life she was an ex-circus bareback rider and pianist; in her inner world she was a medium who claimed to be "a persecuted virgin who travelled the wide world in search of occult wisdom."5 Gathering disciples about her, Blavatsky

The Enigma of Atlantis

7

formulated an immense Theosophical dogma which not only provided for the existence of Atlantis, but also put forward a polar civilization known as Hyperborea and a South Pacific realm known as Lemuria. Since her own book, The Secret Doctrine, was largely unreadable, most of Blavatsky's teachings were popularized by a follower named W. Scott-Elliot in a work called The Story of Atlantis. As the twentieth century progressed, some startling new theories came to be advanced as solutions to the problem of Atlantis. Many of these still belonged to the sphere of the occult: Charles Berlitz, for example, suggested in two books (The Mystery of Atlantis; The Bermuda Triangle) the existence of an undersea Atlantis in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. According to his theory, all the disappearances of people, ships, and planes in that area are due to the peculiar activities going on below. So pervasive has Berlitz' influence been in recent years that a major Canadian Press story of September r o, 1977, carried the claims of a self-styled clairvoyant that he "sensed an underwater civilization of amphibious people, descendants of the fabled lost city of Atlantis" around Bermuda. Other recent writers have tried to avoid the overtly occult by giving their hypotheses a "scientific basis." A good illustration is provided by the work of Immanuel Velikovsky, who has theorized that a collision between Earth and a comet c. 1500 B.c. resulted in the destruction of Atlantis and caused worldwide upheavals; he further claimed that this comet liked Earth's neighbourhood so much that it moved in and became the planet Venus.° Another recent "scientific" approach has taken its impetus from the theories of Erich von Däniken. Here the tale of Atlantis is viewed in cosmic terms: astronauts from an outer space "Atlantis" once came to and colonized the primitive planet Earth.' What is unfortunately scarce in such "scientific" approaches is hard scientific evidence to support such claims. In the 1 g6os and 197os a new avenue of approach was opened to Atlantis, one that can best be termed an archaeological approach. This period has seen great advances made, through archaeological excavations, on our comprehension of ancient civilizations, especially those centred around the Mediterranean basin. There is now, for example, much more information available about the ancient Bronze Age civilization on the island of Crete, a civilization only rediscovered in 1900. This particular civilization, named Minoan by its discoverer, Sir Arthur Evans, has since 1913 been considered a possible source of the Atlantis legend; in more recent years the Greek archaeologists Spyridon Marinatos and A. G. Galanopoulos have done much to develop this hypothesis. When, in 1967, excavations on the volcanic

8

Chapter One

island of Thera (Santorini) , only Ito kilometres north of Crete, revealed a completely buried city, worldwide interest in the Atlantis tale was rekindled. Here, at least, was a non-occult solution to the enigma of Atlantis, or so its adherents argued. Thus, there are now many roads to Atlantis, some of them in direct opposition to each other. One could well be excused for despairing of travelling on any of them, and yet the fascination of the journey remains. Whether Atlantis ever existed in reality or just in the imagination of mankind, its influence has been undeniable, and its call irrepressible. PLATO ON ATLANTIS

Two Platonic dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias, serve as our primary sources for the tale of Atlantis. It is best to begin any examination of the Atlantis problem with them. Accurate English translations of these works have been made by Benjamin Jowett. As the Timaeus opens, Socrates is talking to three friends: Timaeus, who gives his name to the dialogue, Critias, and Hermocrates. Another participant was supposed to be present, but we are told that this unnamed friend is ill and will not attend the gathering. With the "cast of characters" thus established, the business of the dialogue begins, with Socrates calling on his friends to speak to a topic that was discussed on the previous day. This topic, we learn, was political and concerned the constitution and citizens of the ideal state; after Socrates has reviewed some of the points raised on the previous day, he expresses his desire to see how such an ideal state would behave in practice rather than simply in theory: "I should like to hear someone tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and education." In his usual fashion, Socrates denies his own ability to fulfil this desire and turns to his friends for their aid. After praising all three men, he reminds them of their promise, given on the previous day, to speak to this particular topic. Hermocrates affirms their willingness to speak and asks Critias to tell Socrates "an ancient tradition" which seems relevant to the problem. When Timaeus agrees to this procedure, Critias begins his tale: Crit. Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend

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of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival. Soc. Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be not a mere legend, but an actual fact? Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was, as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. 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 sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgement Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing 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 his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander. About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it 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:—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, and is the city from which King Amasis came. 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

10

Chapter One 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; he 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, wishing to draw 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 man", and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: 0 Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. 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 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 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 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 sea-shore. And from this calamity we are preserved by the liberation of the Nile, who is our neverfailing saviour. 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. The fact is,

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that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And 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. 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. 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. Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests 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 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 8,000 years old. As touching your citizens of 9,000 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. If you compare these very laws with ours 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

12

Chapter One the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; 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, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you 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; out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to 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 most like 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 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 land surrounding it on every side 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,

The Enigma of Atlantis

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TRUE CONTINENT

TRUE CONTINEN T

2. The World according to Plato 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 dangers, 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. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard

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Chapter One from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided. And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole of it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make a wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with child-like interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end to my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonize, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead. Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and

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not a fiction? How or where shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot, and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and I in return for my yesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener. Crit. Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created, and of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as Athenians and fellow citizens. Soc. I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid feast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak next, after duly calling upon the Gods.' Hereupon, Timaeus delivers a lengthy, and often obscure, discourse on the creation of the world. There is no further mention of ancient Athens or Atlantis in the dialogue. Nonetheless, the final statement of Critias just quoted clearly informs us that other dialogues will continue the tale of Atlantis and ancient Athens: after Timaeus' explanation of the creation, Critias will speak again about "the men whom he has created, and of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon ... we will bring them into court and make them citizens." This last statement appears to refer to an intended dialogue, perhaps entitled the Hermocrates, which was never written. The Critias accordingly begins with Timaeus' "delivering up the argument to Critias" for the second part of the promised response to Socrates. After some preliminary comments, Critias picks up once more the tale of Atlantis. Crit. Friend Hermocrates, you, who are stationed last and have another in front of you, have not lost heart as yet; the gravity of the situation will soon be revealed to you; meanwhile I accept your exhortations and encouragements. But besides the gods and goddesses whom you have mentioned, I would specially invoke

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Chapter One Mnemosyne; for all the important part of my discourse is dependent on her favour, 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. And now, making no more excuses, I will proceed. 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 those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as I have said, once existed, greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and afterwards when sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to those voyagers from hence who attempt to cross the ocean which lies beyond. The progress of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all the Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to Athens. In the days of old, the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment. There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurslings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;—thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order. Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government; their names are

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preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors they knew only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the inquiry into antiquity find their way into cities in company with leisure, when they see some of the citizens already provided with the necessaries of life, but not before. And this is the reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the excellence which is typical of their kind. Now the country was inhabited in those days by various classes of citizens;—there were artisans, and there were husbandmen, and there was also a warrior class originally set apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by themselves, and had all things suitable for nurture and education; neither had any of them anything of their own, but they regarded all that they had as common property; nor did they claim to receive of the other citizens anything more than their necessary food. And they practised all the pursuits which we yesterday described as those of our imaginary guardians. Concerning the country the Egyptian priests said what is not only probable but manifestly true, that the boundaries were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, and that in the direction of the continent they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes; the boundary line came down in the direction of the sea, having the district of Oropus on the right, and with the river Asopus as the limit on the left. The land

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Chapter One was the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a vast army, exempt from the labours of the soil. Even the remnant of Attica which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the variety and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every sort of animal, which proves what I am saying; but in those days the country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I establish my words? and in what respect can it be truly called a remnant of the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the shore. 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 during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left. But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains. Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saving. Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honour, and of a

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noble nature, and had a soil the best in the world, and abundance of water, and in the heaven above an excellently attempered climate. Now the city in those days was arranged on this wise. In the first place the Acropolis was not as now. For the fact is that a single night of excessive rain washed away the earth and laid bare the rock; at the same time there were earthquakes, and then occurred the extraordinary inundation, which was the third before the great destruction of Deucalion. But in primitive times the hill of the Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and Ilissus, and included the Pnyx on one side, and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite side to the Pnyx, and was all well covered with soil, and level at the top, except in one or two places. Outside the Acropolis and under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans, and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near; the warrior class dwelt by themselves around the temples of Athene and Hephaestus at the summit, which moreover they had enclosed with a single fence like the garden of a single house. On the north side they had dwellings in common and had erected halls for dining in winter, and had all the buildings which they needed for their common life, besides temples, but there was no adorning of them with gold and silver, for they made no use of these for any purpose; they took a middle course between meanness and ostentation, and built modest houses in which they and their children's children grew old, and they handed them down to others who were like themselves, always the same. But in summertime they left their gardens and gymnasia and dining halls, and then the southern side of the hill was made use of by them for the same purpose. Where the Acropolis now is there was a fountain, which was choked by the earthquake, and has left only the few small streams which still exist in the vicinity, but in those days the fountain gave an abundant supply of water for all and of suitable temperature in summer and in winter. This is how they dwelt, being the guardians of their own citizens and the leaders of the Hellenes, who were their willing followers. And they took care to preserve the same number of men and women through all time, being as many as could already perform, or could still perform, military service, that is to say, about twenty thousand. Such were the ancient Athenians, and after this manner they righteously administered their own land and the rest of Hellas; they were renowned all over Europe and Asia for the beauty of their persons and for the many virtues of their souls, and of all men who lived in those days they were the most illustrious. And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when

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Chapter One 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 perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, inquired into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language. My grandfather had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced. 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 for themselves temples and instituted 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 describe. Towards the sea, half-way down the length 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 called Cleito. The maiden had already reached 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, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and

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brought up five pairs of twin male children; and 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 the first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of

Canal C

Canal to the Sea

3. The Royal City of Atlantis

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Chapter One the island towards the pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he 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 Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus, 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 he gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to the younger that of Diaprepes. All these and their descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in our direction over the country within the pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained the kingdom, the eldest son handing it 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 needed, both in the 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 most 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, solid as well as fusile, 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, being more precious in those days than anything except gold. 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; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment, and any other which we use for food—we call them all by the common name of pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of

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dessert, with which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating—all these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their temples and palaces and harbours 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, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went 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 bored a canal of 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 harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and they covered over the channels so as to leave a way underneath for the ships; for the banks 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 zones, the one of water, the other 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. All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on every 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 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, varying the colour to please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of

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Chapter One

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 on 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 where the family of the ten princes was conceived and saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. 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, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor, they coated 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 by the men of those days. There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all who had been numbered among the ten kings, both them and their wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple. In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees; also they made cisterns, some open to the heaven, others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing

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all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along 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 others for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was set apart 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 main body of guards, whilst the more trusted of them were appointed to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, near 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. Leaving the palace and passing out across the three harbours, you came to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all sorts night and day. I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace in the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to represent to you the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him to be 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 towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work. I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages.

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Chapter One It was naturally for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line had been made regular by the surrounding ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. 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 meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Farther inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to 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 of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied, when they introduced streams from the canals. As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was 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, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to their districts 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 for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a car, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelinmen, who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal city—the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several differences. As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and

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in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and inquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgement, and before they passed judgement they gave their pledges to one another on this wise: —There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they proceeded to burn its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor 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 descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, 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, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgement, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they had

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Chapter One given judgement, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial. There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about the temples; but the most important was the following: They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants 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. Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of 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 virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them they are lost, and virtue with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of 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 becoming tainted with unrighteous ambition and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceived that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods

The Enigma of Atlantis

sg

into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows: 9 Here, in the middle of the narrative, the tale unexpectedly breaks off. Whether Plato ever actually finished the story is not known; Atlantis and ancient Athens do not appear again in his works.

Plato and the Cast of Characters THE LIFE OF PLATO

The man who bequeathed us the vision of Atlantis was Plato, the Greek philosopher well known for his close relationship with Socrates. Despite the fact that a great deal of Plato's writing is still extant, we know relatively little about his life. Plato is reticent about himself in his philosophical treatises, usually written in the form of dramatic dialogues; it is only in the Epistles that personal information is provided, and, unfortunately, at least some of these letters are later forgeries which cannot be relied upon for accurate data. Besides the Epistles, our only important sources for Plato's life are Diogenes Laertius, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch, all of whom lived centuries after the philosopher and whose sources may not have been entirely reliable. As a result, parts of Plato's life remain shrouded in mystery. It appears that Plato was born in 427 B.c., when the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta was in high gear. His birthplace is uncertain : some sources assert that he was born in Athens, but others claim the event took place on the nearby island of Aegina; all sources agree, however, in making him the scion of an aristocratic Athenian family. According to Diogenes Laertius,' Plato's mother, Perictione, was a descendant of Dropides, reputed to be the brother of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver of the sixth century B.C. The most famous member of the family, aside from Plato himself, was the Critias who served as one of the so-called Thirty Tyrants imposed upon Athens by Sparta at the close of the war; this Critias was the uncle of the philosopher. As was to be expected in a member of such an "establishment" family, Plato was obviously destined to embark on a political career.

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And so he might well have done had he not come into contact with one of the most thought-provoking Athenians of his day, the philosopher Socrates. Under the influence of Socrates, Plato turned his attention more and more to the theory of government rather than to the practice of governing itself, and the budding politician yielded to the probing philosopher. As it turned out, Plato never played a prominent role in Athenian politics, something for which he seems to apologize in the Seventh Epistle, generally regarded as authentic. The execution of Socrates by the Athenians in 399 B.C. had a devastating effect on Plato, who could not understand how Athens could put such a man to death on flimsy charges of "impiety" and "corruption." Turning his back on his native city, Plato travelled to Megara with some other followers of Socrates;2 soon after he is said to have begun a long period of travelling that saw him visit many different parts of the ancient world. Tradition records visits by Plato to Cyrene in Africa, Egypt, Phoenicia, Italy, and Sicily. The evidence for the accuracy of this tradition is scanty, although most authorities agree that the visits to Italy and Sicily can be accepted without doubt. It is the visit to Egypt that is most intriguing in terms of the Atlantis tale. In the Timaeus Plato has Critias say that Solon learned of Atlantis during a visit to Egypt; some critics see this assertion as a literary device and claim that Plato himself heard the tale of Atlantis during his own stay in Egypt. Ivan Linforth, for example, has written that "there is small doubt ... that it was Plato and not Solon who brought back this story from Egypt."3 The problem here is that the evidence for such a visit by Plato is not overwhelming. First, Plato himself says absolutely nothing of any such visit in his extant works; second, the information on this point as provided by Diogenes Laertius is somewhat suspect : in his Life of Plato that historian of the third century A.D. wrote that Plato journeyed to Egypt "to see those who interpreted the will of the gods" and added that he was accompanied on this voyage by Euripides (3.6) . It does not increase our confidence in Diogenes to realize that Euripides was long dead at the time of Plato's alleged visit to Egypt. Thus we are left with the statement of Plutarch, in his Life of Solon, to the effect that "Plato paid for the expenses of his stay in Egypt by selling oil" (Solon 2). If we cannot be certain about a journey to Egypt, we can be sure that Plato did visit the "Greek West," Italy and Sicily. This part of the Hellenic world was the America of its day—a place where opportunities seemed unlimited and to which some of the most prominent intellects migrated. The pressing attraction of southern Italy for Plato

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was probably the Pythagorean community that was flourishing at Taras, since it is clear that many of Plato's philosophic doctrines are derived from the beliefs of that group. As for the island of Sicily, Diogenes tells us that Plato went there "the first time to see the island and the craters" of Mount Etna (3.18) . The date of this first visit to Sicily is usually given as 388/387 n.c.,4 when Dionysius I was ruling as tyrant of the important city of Syracuse. According to tradition, Dionysius summoned Plato to his court, and there the philosopher met Dion, the twenty-year-old brother-in-law of the tyrant. The friendship between Plato and Dion which took root then was destined to last for many years and cause innumerable problems for each man. Plato was apparently too outspoken at the court of Dionysius, for Diodorus Siculus records that Dionysius "at first deigned to show him the highest favour ... but later, being offended at some of his statements, he became altogether alienated from him, exposed him in the market, and sold him as a slave" (15.7) .6 What happened next to Plato is unclear, but it seems likely that some of his friends learned of the philosopher's plight and arranged to ransom him. In any event Plato, once more a free man, returned to Athens, where, in 386 B.c., he founded his school, the Academy. For the next two decades Plato taught at the Academy and settled down into the quiet life of a university professor. In 367 B.C., however, a chain of events began that would lead to much unhappiness for Plato. In that year the throne of Syracuse passed into the hands of Dionysius II, the thirty-year-old son of the recently deceased tyrant, and Dion wrote to his old friend Plato, inviting him to return to Sicily. Apparently Dion had hopes that Plato would somehow be able to mould the character of the new ruler into a kind of "philosopher-king" whose rule would bring new blessings to Syracuse. Plato reluctantly accepted the invitation, but discovered, very soon after his arrival, that the younger Dionysius was not a likely candidate for such a transformation. Before long Plato found himself caught up in the intrigues of the court and saw his friend Dion banished from Syracuse. As soon as he could, Plato took his leave and returned to Athens. That Plato would make a third journey to Sicily after these events is surprising, but he did just that in 361 B.c. It seems that Dionysius II was having second thoughts and expressed a desire to have Plato back in Syracuse to teach him, even promising to recall Dion to Sicily if the philosopher agreed to come. Against his better judgement, Plato decided to go, his loyalty to Dion getting the better of his own appraisal of the political situation. Plato's hopes were once

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more quashed: Dionysius showed himself to be insincere in his desire for knowledge and in his promise to treat Dion well. After months of dangerous court intrigue Plato managed to leave Syracuse. He was back in Athens in 36o B.C. and resumed his teaching at the Academy, where he remained until his death, at the age of eighty, in 347 B.C. He died without ever realizing his dream of the perfect "philosopherking." The facts of Plato's life are thus mostly concerned with his activities in Sicily; indeed, the documentation for this part of his life is quite full and revealing, giving us unusual insight into the mind of the man himself. Clearly Sicily in general and Syracuse in particular were important to Plato, in the sense that they were to be the "proving ground" of his philosophical theory of government. Knowing that it was not enough to postulate an ideal society in theory only, Plato had a deep desire to set up such a republic and watch it work in the real world. This desire is clearly reflected in the Timaeus when Socrates asks his friends to describe how an ideal society would work in reality; the result of this request is, of course, Critias' tale of the island of Atlantis. SOLON

According to Plato, the Greek source of the Atlantis tale was the Athenian statesman and poet Solon: as Critias says, "Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages" (Timaeus 2oe). Critias goes on to explain that Solon had once visited Egypt, where a very old priest had told him the story of Atlantis as it had been preserved in the Egyptian records; so impressed had Solon been by this tale that he intended to compose a poem about Atlantis when he returned to Athens. This poem, however, was never completed, since, we are told, Solon was "compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters (Timaeus 2I c) For those convinced of the authenticity of the Atlantis tale, the presence of Solon in Plato's narrative is a comfort: after all, they argue, Solon was a well-known historical figure and Plato would not have dared to weave a fabric of lies around him. And yet, it is an undeniable fact that odd stories in antiquity had an uncanny knack of tying themselves to famous historical figures, just as poems by minor poets often found themselves attached to the name of a Homer or an Anacreon. Even so historical a figure as Solon did not escape this process: one of the most famous tales of antiquity was

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that of an interview between Solon and Croesus, the king of Lydia in Asia Minor.' It is now agreed that no such interview could ever have taken place and that we are dealing here with a tale invented to display the legendary wisdom of the Athenian statesman. Thus the fact that Plato associates Solon with the story of Atlantis does not, by itself, prove the story authentic in any way. Rather, it is necessary to examine our knowledge of the life of Solon to see if there can be found any corroborative evidence for Plato's claim. Our knowledge of Solon, unfortunately, is limited not only by the paucity of major ancient sources, but also by the questionable accuracy of those few sources which do exist. Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Diogenes Laertius, and Aristotle in his Constitution of Athens are the four major sources for the life of Solon. Of these, the closest in time to Solon himself was Aristotle, and that authority was still two centuries distant from the statesman he discusses; Plutarch (second century A.D.), Diodorus (first century B.c.), and Diogenes (third century A.D.) are yet further removed. Moreover, the sources employed by these writers are now lost, except for certain fragments of Solon's poems which we are fortunate to possess today. Aside from the poems of Solon, diverse sources must have been consulted by our four authorities, since their accounts of Solon do not always agree in detail. The accuracy of such sources is clearly not beyond questioning, and we must, as a result, be wary of accepting uncritically anything claimed for Solon in our extant authorities. The only certain evidence for Solon's life and activities must be the fragments of his poems as they exist today, and, since most are indeed fragments, the information they convey is naturally piecemeal. Nonetheless, we can try to reconstruct some aspects of Solon's life as long as we bear in mind the hypothetical nature of any such attempt. It seems likely that Solon was born around 64o B.c. and that he died around 56o B.c. His family apparently belonged to the aristocracy of Athens, although it seems to have fallen on hard times financially, forcing Solon to engage in commerce to make a living. Diogenes Laertius (3.1) provides the family tree shown on page 36. At first glance, this looks like important information in our examination, but closer inspection reveals, in the words of Ivan Linforth, "two flaws in this genealogy: in the first place, there must be at least two more generations between the oligarch Critias and Exekestides the father of Solon; and in the second place, it is not certain that Solon had a brother named Dropides."7 In this last respect we should bear in mind that Plato has Critias say in the Timaeus (toe) that Solon "was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides." Critias does not say that Solon and Dropides were indeed

Exekestides Solon

Dropides I Critias I Callaischros Glaucon

Ariston = Perictione

1 Critias II (Oligarch) I Charmides

Plato brothers, a strange omission if this was the relationship between the two. In the end, all that we can accept as certain is Solon's descent from Exekestides, and his friendship with a kinsman named Dropides as claimed by Plato and corroborated by Solon's poem 39, addressed to Critias, son of Dropides. More than this simply cannot be claimed in confidence. If we know relatively little about the family of Solon, we do have much more information about the event that brought Solon to the forefront of Athenian political life, namely, his election to a special archonship sometime around 594. B.c. This period in Athenian history was marked by major class strife brought about by the oppression of the poorer people by the wealthy aristocrats. The gulf between rich and poor was widening, especially as many impoverished citizens were being enslaved for failure to pay debts to their aristocratic creditors. It seemed that open conflict was inevitable, and, in a rare show of unity, both classes agreed that Solon should be entrusted with extraordinary powers to bring about a peaceful resolution. Solon made a noble attempt to please both sides, but he ended up pleasing neither: the poor complained that Solon's measures had not gone far enough in improving their lot, while the rich naturally felt that his reforms had gone too far in catering to the rabble. His measures, which included a general cancellation of land debts, the freeing of debtors enslaved by their creditors, and a liberalization of the Athenian constitution to enable more citizens to participate in the government, did not in the end eradicate the class struggle in Athens. One could argue that Solon's reforms in fact exacerbated the conflict, since the lower classes, now getting their first real taste of political power, increased their agitation, even demanding a total redistribution of the land of Attica. This Solon refused to do. Although Solon's attempt to end class strife in Athens must ulti-

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mately be regarded as a failure, his contribution to the political development of his city-state cannot be neglected. Solon put Athens upon the path that would eventually lead to a radical democracy; he improved the lot of the lower classes; he created new organs of government; most importantly, he issued a code of law to ensure that all citizens would be equal under the eyes of justice: no longer would there be one law for the rich and another for the poor. Indeed, Solon recognized the vital role to be played by law in a stable and prosperous state: eunomia, which to Solon meant both good laws and the citizens' ready obedience to them, was the only path to salvation for Athens (poem t 2) . Solon's term as archon was clearly the culmination of his political career; it was not, however, his only foray into public life, since ancient tradition is adamant in connecting Solon with the Athenian conquest of the island of Salamis.' This aspect of Solon's career is usually passed over in examinations of Solon's role in the Atlantis tale; yet there may well be an unsuspected connection between the two. The parallels are striking: Salamis, like Plato's Atlantis, was an island to the west of Athens; like Atlantis, Salamis came into conflict with Athens; like Atlantis, Salamis was defeated by Athens; finally, we know that Solon composed a poem about Salamis, and Plato states that Solon was going to write a poem about Atlantis. While it perhaps would be rash to speculate too much here, it would seem fair to state that the name of Solon was connected with the conquest of an island and a poem about that conquest in antiquity; thus it may have been natural for Plato to associate Solon with his island of Atlantis. It would also have been natural for Solon himself to become fascinated with the tale of an island in the west after his own experience with Salamis. And so the conquest of Salamis by Athens, in which Solon participated in some way before his archonship,9 may well have a relevance to the Atlantis tale which we cannot fully comprehend today, especially since only eight verses of Solon's i oo-line poem Salamis are still extant. What becomes crucial in our examination of the life of Solon is the reality of his trip to Egypt as recorded by Plato. Obviously, if Solon never travelled to Egypt, he could not have learned the story of Atlantis in the way Plato relates, and the entire Platonic tale would be discredited. We need to find other evidence, independent of Plato, which places Solon in Egypt; better still, we need evidence which places Solon in Plato's "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 King Amasis came.... To this city came Solon" (Timaeus 2 1 e) .

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The ancient evidence for a visit by Solon to Egypt is substantial: for example, the Greek historian Herodotus attests to the fact that Solon left Athens for a period of ten years after his archonship (1.29) and that the statesman journeyed in particular to Egypt, where he visited the court of Amasis (1.30) . Furthermore, Aristotle, in the Constitution of Athens 1 I, mentions a journey of Solon to Egypt and an absence from Athens intended to last ten years; Aristotle clearly implies in his account that Solon left on his travels immediately after his term as archon. Diogenes Laertius claims that the statesman sailed to Egypt just after Pisistratus gained power in Athens (I.50) . Finally, Plutarch twice associates Solon and Egypt: first, in his Isis and Osiris (Io.354e) Plutarch claims that Solon, among other philosophers (including Plato), "travelled to Egypt and took counsel with the priests there"; even more specifically, Plutarch adds that Solon "received instruction" from the priest named Sonchis of Sais. The second source in Plutarch for an Egyptian journey is the famous Life of Solon: there (26) Plutarch states that Solon went to Egypt on the first leg of his travels, just after leaving Athens (again, an absence of ten years is mentioned) ; we are told that Solon studied for a time with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais, the two most learned Egyptian priests, and that "according to Plato" it was from these priests that Solon heard the tale of the lost Atlantis. Further on in his narrative (31), Plutarch returns to this subject, stating that Solon tried to compose a poem dealing with lost Atlantis because he was intrigued by its special connection with his own city-state of Athens. It is, in fact, Plutarch who, by way of attesting to Solon's Egyptian journey, preserves the only verse of that statesman which appears to refer directly to Egypt: N&Xov tri vpoxof n KavwßtSos .yry&Bev d,cr"gs ("at the outpouring of the Nile, close to the Canopic shore," fragment 24). The evidence that Solon travelled abroad, paying a visit to Egypt, is thus strong and cannot be easily dismissed. Establishing Solon's presence in Egypt is of course crucial to any case arguing for Plato's veracity; there is, however, another question, although of lesser importance, which ought to be posed: when did Solon go on his travels? Answering this question is quite difficult, since our major sources for the life of Solon do not agree. In the Timaeus Plato gives his reader no specific information as to when Solon went to Egypt; his statement that Solon never finished his projected poem on Atlantis because strife in Athens forced him "to attend to other matters" is so vague that it allows one to place the journey to Egypt either before or after Solon's term as archon. The only other time reference provided in the Timaeus has often been

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misunderstood, namely, the reference to Amasis as ruler of Egypt. At Timaeus 2 le, Plato writes that Solon travelled to Sais, "the city from which King Amasis came." Note that Plato does not say that Amasis was in power at the precise time of Solon's visit; rather, his reference to Amasis is introduced into the text only to help identify the city of Sais. Thus we are not justified, on the basis of the Timaeus alone, in placing Solon's trip to Egypt within the reign of Amasis (569-525 B.c.) . Once again we need corroborative evidence. Consulting our ancient sources on this question, we find that Herodotus also mentions the reign of Amasis in connection with Solon's sojourn in Egypt. Indeed that historian makes it quite clear that Solon was in Egypt when Amasis was on the throne (1.3o ) . If Herodotus is correct in this regard, Solon's journey must have taken place no earlier than 569, when Amasis came to power. On this reckoning, Solon would have been approximately seventy-one years old at the time, and his archonship at Athens would have been some twenty-five years in the past. A similar view seems to have been taken by Diogenes Laertius (1.5o) : Diogenes places Solon in Egypt at the time when Pisistratus was coming to power in Athens (c. 56o B.c.) . Thus, Diogenes' account, like that of Herodotus, presents Solon going to Egypt towards the end of his life; unfortunately, Diogenes fails to note who was in power in Egypt at the time of Solon's visit. The evidence provided by Plutarch in this regard is somewhat oblique: that authority states that Solon never finished his poem on Atlantis "not, as Plato suggests, for lack of time, but because of his age," fearing that the proposed task would be beyond his capacities (31) . Such a statement makes sense only if Solon were well advanced in years when he came into contact with the story of Atlantis. We infer from Plutarch that Solon went to Egypt relatively late in his life, as has also been suggested by Herodotus and Diogenes Laertius. This view, however, is directly contradicted by Aristotle in the Constitution of Athens it . As mentioned earlier, Aristotle seems to have believed that Solon left Athens on his travels immediately after his archonship (c. 594 B.c.), not a quarter of a century later. If Aristotle is correct, Solon went abroad in the prime of life and returned to Athens still vigorous and having many years left to live. In summation, then, most of our ancient sources for the travels of Solon seem to place him in Egypt towards the end of his life; only Aristotle suggests an early journey to Egypt, immediately after the archonship. Given this state of affairs, absolute certainty eludes us; nonetheless, it seems strange that modern historians cling so tightly to the "traditional" date of c. 590 B.c. for Solon's departure from

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Athens. Linforth, for example, rejects outright as "chronologically quite improbable" Herodotus' association of Solon with Amasis, stating that "Solon was almost certainly at home again in Athens before the beginning of his reign."10 Linforth accordingly takes the view that "Solon's travels fell early in the interval between his archonship and the accession of Pisistratus."' There is one possible way of reconciling such diverse views: remove the archonship of Solon from its traditional date of 594 B.C. and place it later in Athenian history, closer to the time of Pisistratus' usurpation of power. Only in this way could all of our sources be made to agree in the dating of Solon's travels. Yet, such a downdating of Solon's archonship is most controversial, rejecting as it does the chronological statements about the archonship in ancient sources. In the end, it is perhaps wisest to reserve judgement on the date of Solon's archonship and to accept a relatively late period in Solon's life as the most likely time for his travels abroad, agreeing with Plutarch (29) who states that, when Solon returned to Athens from abroad, he was so old that he no longer had either the strength or the desire to participate in public affairs. While the precise date of Solon's voyage must remain uncertain, we have, nonetheless, been able to place him in Egypt, where Plato has him first learn of Atlantis. There is one last aspect of the SolonAtlantis connection which needs a close examination : given Solon's presence in Egypt (at some time), and assuming, at least for the time being, the accuracy of Plato's account, would it have been likely for Solon to have become so captivated by the tale of Atlantis that he resolved to compose a poem on the topic once he returned to Athens? In other words, what was there about the story that would have attracted the sophisticated, worldly Solon? Would he have had the motivation needed to act in the way Plato tells us he did? We must not only place Solon in Egypt, but we must also explain his interest in what the Egyptian priests may have told him. The point which needs to be made here is that the composition of an "Atlantis" would have been just as appropriate for Solon as for Plato. The interest of Plato in the concept of an Atlantis has been well explained : Plato, fascinated as he was by the idea of utopian societies, found in the Atlantis story a useful exemplum for his philosophy. Having conjured up an ideal state in the Republic, Plato employs the Atlantis tale in the Timaeus and the Critias to show an ideal state in action; so appropriate was the Atlantis story in this respect that many authorities on Plato are quite convinced that the philosopher himself invented the entire story, despite statements in the dialogues asserting the truth of the tale. From their point of view, so many aspects of the story relate so strongly to Platonic philosophy

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that it is difficult to conceive of an independent, non-Platonic source for Atlantis. In brief, the story seems far too "Platonic." It must be remembered that Solon, too, was a philosopher with a great interest in states and their governments. As the extant poems make very clear, Solon was desperately trying to improve Athens by creating a society that was more just, that provided more freedom to the poor while not bringing unfair oppression upon the rich. As he looked at his strife-torn city, he saw that it was being destroyed by its own people, who had become greedy, wanton, excessive in their demands (poem 1 z) ; the cure, as he saw it, was to be found in eunomia, a fair system of laws, properly obeyed by the people for their own mutual well-being. Unless this cure was imposed, Solon foresaw doom, in the form of justice sent by Zeus, for Athens (poem 40) . As Linforth has written : On the model of the orderly universe and contented human acquiescence therein, Solon conceived his ideal of political salvation. That men may live together happily, it is necessary that they should establish a system of wise laws and give them their ready obedience. Selfishness, arrogance, and caprice have no place under a reign of law. We have seen how Solon endeavored to provide for Athens this utopian state." If Solon had heard a story about a lost island when he was in Egypt, here was an appropriate topic for conveying his "message" to the Athenian people. For Atlantis, as depicted in the Platonic dialogues, is clearly a good-city-gone-wrong, much like the Athens of Solon's own day. Plato's words applied to the citizens of the doomed island could just as easily be applied to the citizens of Athens: "they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts ... becoming tainted with unrighteous ambition and power" (Critias 121b). The punishment of Atlantis would then become a vivid warning of what could befall Athens herself. Solon could have found in the tale of Atlantis a medium for his moral philosophy, a philosophy extremely relevant to his contemporary Athens. Of course, it would be wrong to assert that he did in fact have such a thought in mind, for our extant evidence offers no tangible support. But it is not impossible, nor even improbable, that Solon could have seen the potential use that could be made of the Atlantis tale by a poet such as himself. Thus it is apparent that we cannot summarily dismiss the role attributed to Solon in the Platonic dialogues. Not only did Solon

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travel to Egypt, he also had the temperament and talent to appreciate the moral of a story about a lost island; believing that poetry could be used to educate people, he surely would have looked upon the Atlantis story as a promising vehicle for moral suasion. While the extant sources will not allow us to state categorically that Solon did in fact bring back to Athens the story of Atlantis, the possibility remains strong that Plato was indeed accurate in attributing the transmission of the Atlantis tale to Solon. TIMAEUS, HERMOCRATES, AND CRITIAS

The remaining figures whose names are inextricably linked to the Atlantis tale are the three men called upon by Socrates in the Timaeus to depict the ideal state in action. Timaeus, who gives his name to the dialogue, is unknown elsewhere. From the dialogue we learn that he was a native of Locri in Italy and that, as his dissertation on the universe shows, he was familiar with the Pythagorean doctrines that flourished in southern Italy. Since there is no other evidence regarding the existence of this man, it has been suggested that Timaeus is in fact a fictitious character created by Plato expressly for this dialogue. With regard to Hermocrates, there is no doubt as to his historicity: Hermocrates was a prominent citizen of Syracuse who served his state well as a politician and general.' We know that he expressed an anti-Athenian point of view at the Conference of Gela in 424 B.c.; he was also involved in the resistance to the Athenian naval expedition to Sicily in 415 B.c. Three years later Hermocrates rendered assistance to Sparta, thereby continuing his anti-Athenian tendencies. He returned to Sicily in 408 B.c. and died there shortly afterwards. His prominence in Sicilian affairs is also attested by the fact that Dionysius I, the tyrant of Syracuse, took Hermocrates' daughter as his first wife. It is with the character called Critias that we come into serious difficulties of identification. Throughout most of antiquity, and into the modern era, scholars were convinced that the Critias who relates the story of Atlantis, and after whom, of course, the Critias is named, was Critias the tyrant, the famous kinsman of Plato who appears elsewhere in the Platonic corpus. This Critias was associated with Socrates and was himself skilled as a writer of elegiac poems and tragedies; his pro-Spartan sympathies resulted in his appointment as one of the Thirty Tyrants set over Athens by Sparta at the end of the Peloponnesian War. His life was understood to have extended from 46o to 403 B.C. In the early twentieth century, however, it was realized that the chronological framework provided for Critias in the Timaeus does

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not suit the identification of this figure with Plato's oligarchic kinsman. Critias states in that dialogue that his great-grandfather, Dropides, was a relative and close friend of Solon; that Solon had told the tale of Atlantis to Critias, his namesake grandfather; and that he himself had heard the tale from this grandfather. This last event took place at a celebration of the Apaturia, when Critias was ten and his grandfather was ninety. Finally, we are told that at this time the poems of Solon were considered to be "new." At first glance, this seems like a great deal of chronological data, but on closer inspection it raises curious problems. We must assume, first of all, that Dropides, being a close friend of Solon, was approximately the same age as that statesman; this Dropides, then, would have been born about 64o B.C., and the following stemma can be drawn: Dropides, born c. 64o Critias I (the grandfather), born c. 600 Father of Critias II, born c. 56o Critias II (narrator), born c. 52o Now, the tyrant Critias was not born until 460 B.c., some sixty years after our presumed Critias II. Thus, two generations seem to be missing from Plato's account if his Critias is Critias the tyrant as so many commentators have assumed him to be. Recognizing this problem, J. Burnet in 1914 put forward the most logical solution: namely, that the Critias who participates in the dialogues was not the tyrant, but the grandfather of the tyrant (born c. 52o B.c.) . This elder Critias also happened to be Plato's own greatgrandfather.14 The correct stemma would then read: Dropides (640) Critias I (600) Father of Critias II (56o) Critias II, narrator (520) Father of Critias III (49o) Critias III, tyrant (460)

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While this revision preserved the chronological framework given us by Plato, it raised an interesting sidelight: given the fact that most authorities place the dramatic date of the Timaeus between 430 and 425 B.c., the narrator of the Atlantis tale, the grandfather of the tyrant, would have been an old man of at least ninety. Some eighty years earlier, when he had been a lad of ten, he had learned of Atlantis from his ninety-year-old grandfather, Critias I. A bit of arithmetic shows that this would have been possible around the year 510 B.c. Critias the tyrant, however, would have been ten years old in 45o B.c. when his grandfather was only about seventy; moreover, it is now known that the name of the tyrant's great-grandfather was Leaides, not Dropides.16 It thus seems most reasonable to accept Critias II (not the tyrant) as Plato's narrator. There has been, however, an objection raised against Burnet's solution: in 1949 T. G. Rosenmeyer revived the view that the tyrant is the correct narrator, arguing that there is no hint in the dialogues that Critias is such an old man.18 In the end, we are left in a dilemma: either we accept (as seems most logical) the Critias born around 520 as our narrator (in his extreme old age), or we, like J. K. Davies, accuse Plato of bungling his chronology in the dialogues. Davies, it is true, tries to defend Plato by suggesting that "the telescoping of the generations ... makes the transmission of the myth go through fewer generations and thereby makes this transmission, as a literary fiction, less implausible."17 But, if Plato performed such a telescoping, then the entire accuracy of his account of Atlantis comes into serious doubt: if Plato was willing to "bend the facts" about the transmission of the tale, might not the tale itself have experienced such distortion? Or, to use Davies' own words, is it all simply "a literary fiction"?

3

The Historical Aspect of Greek Myth TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF MYTH

Is Plato's tale of Atlantis in any sense historical? That is, of course, the basic question in our inquiry. To answer it, even tentatively, requires an understanding of the very nature of myth, especially as it was conceived by the ancient Greeks. Only by comprehending what myths are in general can we attempt to judge the historicity of any one particular myth. To ask what a myth is may seem to be belabouring the obvious: after all, most people "know" what myths are. The problem, however, is that one person's definition of myth may not always agree with another's, and, similarly, a definition of myth that seems valid for one culture may not be equally valid for another. As a result, there exist today numerous, and sometimes contradictory, definitions for myth, as illustrated by the following samples: (I) "that which has- no real existence"; (2) "a traditional story concerning some superhuman being"; (3) "a metaphysical statement beyond science"; (q.) "a controlling image that gives philosophical meaning to the facts of ordinary life"; (5) "an externalization of an inner impulse"; (6) "a legendary narrative that presents part of the beliefs of a people or explains a practice or natural phenomenon." Even these six definitions, a small selection of those available in the modern literature on myth, demonstrate the lack of agreement among experts as to what a "myth" actually is.' The problem of definition has been compounded by the complex nature of the Greek word itself. The term µ)Oos at first seems to have meant "word," "that which is spoken"; it gradually expanded to include "report," "tale," "narrative"; from there it came to imply

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"fiction" or "fable," and ultimately, because "myths" were used by the authors of Greek drama, the term came to stand for "plot." Thus, a word which originally implied nothing about "fact" or "fiction" came, at the end of a long period of development, to mean "something that is not literally true." It is this last definition which is most familiar to people today. A definition of myth, however, is not beyond attainment. One thing that seems certain is that myths are the creation of preliterate societies which desire to preserve some kind of information for posterity. Having no written word, such oral societies treasure memorable tales that are passed from generation to generation.2 These tales, simply because they are conveyed orally, tend to change with each teller and so maintain no "official" format; it is only with the development of literacy that such traditional tales become fixed and static. Thus, one generally acceptable definition of myth is "a traditional tale that arises in an oral society." While this definition is admittedly broad, it does serve to focus upon what seems to be common to all true myths; in a negative manner, moreover, it warns us to be wary of "myths" that cannot be shown to have been traditional or that do not appear to have originated in a preliterate society. Precisely because of the broadness of this definition, "myth" becomes a kind of "umbrella" term that includes such variations as "legend," "folktale," "fairytale," or "saga." Many mythologists today spend a great deal of time differentiating among these terms. They argue, for example, that legends differ from true myths in being of a more historical nature, perhaps having "originated in some actual extraordinary event involving a real person, such as a memorable hunt or journey or deed of valor."8 According to this view, myths proper are best confined to gods or other superhuman beings whose real existence on earth is unlikely. The inadequacy of such a differentiation is illustrated by the Atlantis myth itself : claiming to be a true tale involving a historical place, the story of Atlantis at the same time includes an active role played by the gods. Is this, then, a "myth," a "legend," or, rather, both? Similarly, an artificial distinction has often been drawn between myth and folktale. FolktaIes, we are told, are the simple and anonymous stories of ordinary people (as opposed to "heroes") : they "are concerned essentially with the life, problems and aspirations of ordinary people, the folk. They are not aristocratic in tone.' And yet experts agree that there is a definite overlapping between myths and folktales, that what are often called folktale motifs are also found in myths. As anthropologist E. Evans-Pritchard has stressed, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between myth and folktale.5 A good

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example of this lack of distinction is provided in the Greek myth of Perseus, replete as it is with folktale motifs of "killing a monster" and "rescuing a maiden in distress." The situation is not dissimilar with regard to the fairytale and the saga. The fairytale, in fact, is closely related to folktale, revolving as it does around a hero or heroine experiencing an unpleasant situation.' The main difference seems to be that fairytales are more likely to include supernatural elements, such as guardian spirits or elves. A saga, finally, is commonly defined as a "complex of legends" with some historical element involved :' an often-mentioned example from Greek tradition is the saga of the Trojan War, which most people are apt to call to mind when the words "Greek myth" are spoken. The end result of this excursus has been to demonstrate the futility of drawing fine lines of distinction between these aspects of myth. Myth in fact embraces legend, folktale, fairytale, and saga; all are the traditional tales of an oral society, and it seems perverse to insist that ancient peoples saw any distinctions. Such distinctions as there are today have been created by mythologists to aid in classifying the huge body of traditional tales. In this regard, the use of different terms is understandable; let us, however, recall the original meaning of the Greek µii9os and refrain from asking such ultimately pointless questions as "Is the tale of Atlantis myth or legend?" The truly important question is whether or not the "myth of Atlantis" is a traditional tale that grew out of a preliterate, oral society. THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTH

Assuming for the moment that we are dealing with a true myth, that is, a traditional tale born in an oral society, we must next decide on its interpretation: is this myth totally fictitious, an allegory, partially true, or entirely historical? In other words, what does a myth mean, what does it tell us by its very existence? If myths in general do not contain historical elements, then, obviously, the myth of Atlantis could be a total fabrication with no basis in reality. Theories about the meaning of myths first began to proliferate in the nineteenth century. Since that time numerous claims have been made to the effect that there is some single "key" that can unlock the secrets of myths; anthropologists and classicists alike have been actively championing their various solutions, often in complete ignorance of each other's work. The result, predictably, has been heated academic conflict over the "proper interpretation" of myth. In general, the various theories which have been proposed have approached the problem of myth in one of two ways: the first argues that all myths can be traced back to some single, common source and

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that the identification and examination of that source will enable us to understand the meaning of myths; the second asserts that, whatever their original source or sources, all myths can be interpreted in a common way and assumes that myths, despite their apparent diversity, nonetheless reflect some concept that is basic to the human experience. The search for a common source for myths has generated a great deal of controversy. Those who advocate this approach believe that a myth has its origin in one geographical location, from which it gradually spreads to other, more distant areas. Thus, similar myths found in diverse cultures are the result of cultural contact: for example, the fact that the Greeks had a flood myth (the tale of Deucalion) similar to the well-known Mesopotamian flood myth is explained by a postulated diffusion of that myth from Mesopotamia to Greece.8 Those who hold this particular view have been termed Diffusionists, and have often been involved in "Kon Tiki" types of experiments designed to prove the possibility of cultural contacts in antiquity. Opposing the Diffusionists are the so-called Evolutionists, who argue that similar myths arise in different cultures independently, without cultural contact. The existence of similar mythical motifs in distant societies is due, in their point of view, to the fact that the human mind, wherever it may be physically, tends to react in a similar way to similar events? Thus, the great number of flood myths documented in different and distant cultures is understandable given the frequent occurrence of floods in the human experience and man's predictable reaction to them in a primitive society. The conflict between Diffusionists and Evolutionists continues today and has played a large role in examinations of the Atlantis myth. Donnelly, of course, was a convinced Diffusionist who argued from similar myths in the Americas and Europe back to an original source in Atlantis itself, and more recent writers on Atlantis often reflect his views.10 If we put Atlantis aside, however, we find that the attempt to locate a single source for all myths has not met with success. In the nineteenth century, for example, some philologists claimed that the key to myth was to be found in Sanskrit : since the name of the Sanskrit deity "Dyaus" looked akin to the Greek "Zeus," it was proposed that all myths diffused from that ancient Indo-European source.1' This theory has long been discredited, as it is now clear that Greek myths are not exclusively Indo-European in origin. In fact, many Greek myths reflect the indigenous prehellenic cultures of the Aegean and the native cultures of the Near East (that is,

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Semitic sources). Indeed, the fact that Greek myth now seems to be a complicated mixture of Indo-European, Aegean, and Eastern sources is a serious obstacle to any acceptance of the common source approach to myth, unless, like Donnelly, one is prepared to trace every source back to Atlantis. Many mythologists, as a result, have decided to look, not for a common source, but rather for a common method of interpretation for all myths. This approach has ancient roots: the Greeks themselves, especially in the rationalizing Hellenistic period, were eager seekers after some such key to myth. The best example is provided by Euhemerus, who lived from approximately 325 to 275 B.C. A thoroughgoing rationalist, Euhemerus was puzzled about the origins of the Greek gods and heroes. Not at all inclined to accept the myths literally, he proposed instead that the gods and heroes had in reality been ancient kings and warriors, that is, real historical figures; with the passage of time, said Euhemerus, the deeds of these people became magnified out of proportion, until they were eventually seen as superhuman beings. Thus all myths were to be understood as imaginative and exaggerated accounts of the experiences of these historical figures.12 This theory, not surprisingly, came to be known as euhemerism. If Euhemerus was one of the first to state that "all myths are ... ," he was certainly not the last. As G. S. Kirk makes clear, such "monolithic theories of myth" have multiplied over the past century,13 and currently there are several vying for adherents. A brief survey will serve to demonstrate both the complexity of the task and the lack of any noteworthy success. One of the more popular monolithic theories today asserts that "all myths are aetiological," that is, they were intended to supply explanations (the Greek alma) of events or experiences in a prescientific society.14 The process of myth-making would begin when someone, perhaps a stranger or a child, asked a member of the community some such question as "How did this lake/forest/hill get its name?" or "How did this custom start?" or "Why is the moon round?" As a way of responding, the person questioned would create a story that would explain the phenomenon under scrutiny. In this way, natural phenomena, features of geography, or even social customs would all give rise to myths. There are indeed Greek myths that seem to support this theory: the myth about Prometheus deceiving Zeus by making him choose the bones and fat at a sacrifice neatly explains why bones and fat are offered to the gods during rituals; likewise, the myth that a maiden

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named Helle once fell into the sea explains how the Hellespont got its name. But, on the whole, Greek myths of this sort are infrequent, and most Greek myths do not reflect any aetiological origin. What "explanation," for example, is provided by the myth of Oedipus or that of Perseus? An offshoot of the aetiological approach to myth has been the attempt to prove that "all myths are charters for customs or institutions."15 A good definition of this theory has been furnished recently by Kirk : "What the charter theory implies is that in a traditional society every custom and institution tends to be validated or confirmed by a myth, which states a precedent for it but does not seek to explain it in any logical or philosophical sense."18 The same objection, however, can be made against this theory as against the purely aetiological approach: for every myth that seems to fit the pattern (such as Heracles and the institution of the Olympic Games), there are numerous others that do not. A more specific, yet still related, approach has been to argue that "all myths are associated with rituals" or that "all myths are derived from rituals." According to this belief, existing rituals within a society supply the impetus for the creation of myths which serve to explain or accompany them.17 While this may be true to some degree for other cultures, it seems to have little validity for the Greeks; Kirk, for example, has examined prominent Greek rituals for signs of associated myth and has discovered no significant correlation.!' In fact, there is evidence to suggest that in some cases myths have later given rise to rituals! Moreover, not only did the Greeks not derive myth from ritual, but the Romans, possessing a culture full of elaborate ritual, seem to have had surprisingly few native myths. In the end one is forced to agree with R. De Langhe that "while the study of the myths and ritual practices of so-called primitive peoples has in some cases revealed a close relationship between the myths and the rituals, it is equally true that it has also shown the existence of myths which are unaccompanied by any ritual performance."lø Turning from aetiological theories in all their variety, we find that a very popular approach, both in the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries, has been to state that "all myths are about nature and natural phenomena," or, in other words, myths must always refer to some cosmological or meteorological event.`0 Thus, a tale about a handsome hero (such as Jason or Perseus) who slays a fierce monster (such as a dragon or Medusa) is really about the Sun putting to flight the darkness of Night. The myth of Oedipus now becomes the story of the Sun (Oedipus) defeating Darkness (the Sphinx) in order to be reunited with the Dawn ( Jocasta) . According to the rules of this

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approach, all myth ultimately centres upon the eternal conflict between day and night. In truth there are Greek myths that do seem to possess this cosmological quality: an obvious example is the myth of Ouranos and Gaia, which can be interpreted as symbolic of the falling of rain upon the earth which enables all life to flourish. Moreover, many Greek gods and goddesses do have clear connections with natural phenomena: Zeus is a sky god, associated with thunder and lightning; Poseidon is god of the sea; Demeter is an earth goddess associated with fertility and the seasons. But are we really to believe that all myths concern the sun, moon, sea, mountains, and winds? Rather, what seems apparent is that some Greek myths are indeed about nature, but others are not, and the examples of Oedipus, Jason, and Achilles are relevant here. Once Oedipus became discredited as a solar hero, it was left to Freud and his followers to suggest that Oedipus was actually a phallic symbol, and we are now faced with the so-called psychoanalytical theory of myth. According to this influential school of thought, "all myths are reflections of the psyche" or "all myths are wish-fulfilments" or, indeed, "all myths are sex symbols." To quote Freud himself, "It seems extremely probable that myths ... are the distorted vestiges of the wish-phantasies of whole nations—the age-long dreams of young humanity."21 Freud had postulated a connection between myths and dreams, and Carl Jung later developed this idea,22 suggesting that myths were in some way reflections of what he termed the collective unconscious. Many adherents of Jung soon began to devote an inordinate amount of time to psychoanalysing figures in myth; slowly such venerable tales as "Little Red Riding Hood" took on new and unexpected meanings, with Little Red Riding Hood herself now revealed as a virgin who loathed men and sex. While it is still debatable how much overall validity this Freudian method of interpretation has, the psychoanalytical approach is nonetheless of some interest in regard to Atlantis. As writers on Atlantis over the years have pointed out, the idea that myths may be "wishfulfilments" seems relevant to the tale of a vanished island where once an exotic people dwelt in unparalleled luxury. The human race tends to nourish a continual yearning for utopias, for some place that is better than the one in which we all pass our lives. Indeed Socrates himself, in the Timaeus, expresses this deep-seated yearning when he asks his friends to present him with a picture of his ideal society in action. Thus, the tale of Atlantis, whatever its historical content, may be seen as an exercise in wish-fulfilment, that is, as a

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product of the human psyche. Saying this, however, in no way implies that "wish-fulfilment" is the only possible interpretation of the Atlantis myth. No treatment of modern theories of myth would be complete without the inclusion of the two most recent contributions to this field: the structural theory proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss and the so-called historical-critical theory associated with modern classical scholarship. Levi-Strauss has claimed that "all myths are problemreflecting or speculative" and that their social function is to "mediate contradictions."23 In his books Mythologiques (1964-72) and Structural Anthropology (1972), Levi-Strauss analysed myth by concentrating on the structure of a myth as opposed to its content. After extensive structural analyses of various American native myths, he concluded that primitive peoples often saw the world around them in terms of polar opposites (such as day and night, life and death, wild and tamed). In order to mediate between such polar opposites, these peoples created myths which would "make such contradictions bearable, not so much by embodying wish-fulfilment fantasies or releasing inhibitions as by setting up pseudo-logical models by which the contradictions are resolved, or rather palliated."24 For example, the destructive quality of fire is reconciled with the constructive quality of fire via the mythical figure of Prometheus, or the conflict between the world of wild nature and the tamed and civilized world is "mediated" by a figure such as Cheiron in the Greek myth of the Centaurs. The idea that a basic function of myth is to mediate contradictions is undeniably a valuable contribution to the study of myth, but LeviStrauss and his followers appear to go too far in ignoring the content of myths. Like other monolithic theories about myth, the structural approach wants to be exclusive; myth is still being viewed as an enigma to be solved by a single "key." Thus a uniformity is imposed on myth which common sense tells us is most improbable. Indeed, this assumption of an essential uniformity in all myths is the major flaw in the monolithic theories under review. As we have seen, some myths are easily explained according to the tenets of a particular theory, but others are not. In sum, myths are not all alike: they present a fascinating complexity and multiplicity, from culture to culture, and even within a single culture. Greek myths are not essentially the same as American Indian myths, nor are all Greek myths to be accounted for by any one interpretation. As M. Reinhold has aptly written, "The search for a universal explanation of all myths is a basic mistake: there is no one single fountainhead."26 Fortunately there is a modern approach that recognizes the com-

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plex nature of myths and, as a result, abandons the vain search for a single key: the historical-critical method, which tries to examine all the factors that were involved in the growth of a particular myth. From the historical-critical point of view, a myth is somewhat like an onion: numerous layers have attached themselves to an original core, and each layer must be removed in order to locate, and examine, that core. Here myth is no longer viewed as a static creation, but as something that grows and changes in response to its environment. This approach seems promising in respect to the study of Greek myth, for it is well known that many variants existed for most Greek myths and that Greek writers were by no means adverse to a conscious alteration of a traditional tale to suit contemporary needs. Thus removing the "layers" of a Greek myth may allow us to recover that original core around which the tale grew and also to trace the later development of that core and its accretions through various stages, and so come to an understanding of the entire myth. In the specific case of the myth of Atlantis, the historical-critical method has great potential: if we can succeed in removing the later layers, we may be able to isolate the oldest part of the myth, its original core; then the historicity of that core can come under scrutiny. GREEK MYTH

The historical-critical approach has proved to be especially useful in analyses of Greek myths such as Atlantis because these tales are to a large degree unique in being divorced from their ancient oral roots. In a sense Greek myth became "domesticated" during antiquity, thereby losing that "natural" quality so basic to the myths of other, more primitive cultures; this domestication was achieved by the incorporation of Greek myth into literature, a process that began with the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer in the eighth century B.c. A myth, as we have defined it, is the product of an oral society. In such a society myth continues to grow, reacting as needed to its social environment. Once a myth is written down, however, its natural evolution is interrupted, and it enters an artificial environment that can be manipulated to serve the literary aims of a writer. Literary refinements are added to the myth, endowing it with a more formal aspect; at the same time the myth becomes sanctified as being somehow "official." Greek myth, which was certainly born in an oral society, underwent such a process. As a result, the Greek myths themselves are known today only in their later, literary form, and are consequently quite different from the more "natural" myths associated with, say, Australian aborigines. As Kirk has stated, the Greek myths "have

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already become ossified by the time we first see them."28 This fact points out the vanity of trying to interpret a Greek myth according to rules which are appropriate to the myths of nonliterate peoples today. Thus it is necessary to confront Greek myth on its own terms, much as Kirk has done in his two seminal books on the subject: Myth: Its Meaning and Functions (197o) and The Nature of Greek Myths (1974). In the latter work Kirk has performed an important service for mythologists by separating the corpus of Greek myth into six basic categories, as follows: (1) cosmogonical myths (e.g., OuranosGaia) ; (2) Olympian myths (e.g., birth of Athena, Dionysus) ; (3) myths of early mankind (e.g., Prometheus, Pandora) ; (4) myths of older heroes (e.g., Theseus, Perseus, Cadmus); (5) myths of younger heroes (e.g., Oedipus, Agamemnon) ; (6) inventions of the historical period (e.g., Croesus).27 In examining these categories, Kirk has concluded that 1-3 are less "historical" in nature than 4-6, pointing out that the Greeks apparently experienced little difficulty in converting a historical figure (such as Croesus) into a full-blown mythical hero.28 Indeed, it is precisely in its large number of "hero myths" that Greek myth seems to Kirk to be in a class of its own: "Greece is almost unique in its proliferation of heroic myths as distinct from divine or heavily supernatural ones."29 It is easiest to account for the phenomenon by recognizing the fact that Greece actually experienced a kind of "Heroic Age" during its imperialistic Mycenaean era (1600—I loo B.c.) ; later generations preserved the memory of this expansive age orally (literacy having been lost with the fall of the Mycenaean world) in the so-called heroic myths. We are thus faced squarely with the vital question of whether or not there are any historical elements to be found in the Greek myths, a question of obvious importance in a quest for Atlantis. HISTORY IN MYTH

The idea that there may be "history" in myth may seem, at first glance, paradoxical: the common perception of myth, after all, is that it is "not true." Yet, as our examination of the nature of myth has shown, myth itself is a very complex concept, and it would be unjustifiable to preclude historical elements automatically from any particular traditional tale. Indeed, if the Greeks could turn the very historical Croesus into a mythical figure, there is no reason to believe they could not have engaged in the same process in regard to other figures or events. Nonetheless, the realization that there could well be historical elements in Greek myth has only recently caught the attention of clas-

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sical scholars. It is well known that in the last century scholars dismissed the Greek myths as tales of pure fiction; in their view, the stories centred around Thebes or Troy were mythical in the common sense of the term. Thus the world of scholarship was thoroughly amused when an amateur archaeologist by the name of Heinrich Schliemann announced that he intended to find Homer's Troy; even more amusing was the fact that Schliemann was determined to use the Iliad of Homer as a guide to his excavations, a most unscientific approach. These dour academics were totally convinced that neither Troy nor the Trojan War had any basis whatsoever in reality. Amusement, however, was destined to turn into amazement, as Schliemann uncovered a city that most likely was the historical Troy. While some scholars of the time still resolutely refused to believe that the city found by Schliemann actually was Homer's Troy, continuous study and excavation of the site have tended to confirm Schliemann's opinion, and most modern authorities now accept the reality of the Homeric city. Today Schliemann can only be faulted for his primitive, and often unethical, approach to archaeology, not for his trust in the accuracy of the Iliad. Schliemann's contribution to the growing understanding of Greek myth did not end at Troy. Since the Iliad often spoke of "Mycenae, rich in gold," Schliemann was next determined to excavate the "mythical" city of Agamemnon. Suffice it to say that he was once again successful in both uncovering his site (and its golden treasure) and vindicating Homer's accuracy. Indeed, from the point of view of the study of myth, Schliemann's great achievement was not so much locating the Homeric sites as proving that the Greek myths had some factual basis and that there was at least some historical reality behind the tales of the Trojan War. As a result of his work, modern textbooks commonly treat the Trojan War as a historical event, an attack by Mycenaean Greek forces on the Trojan citadel, which took place around 125o B.c.30 It must be noted, however, that this acceptance of the Trojan War as a historical fact does not mean that every aspect of the Trojan cycle of myths is literally true. For example, few historians today are inclined to believe that Helen's abduction by Paris, prince of Troy, was the actual cause of the Mycenaean-Trojan conflict. What Schliemann's work made clear was that there probably was a historical core in the Trojan myths around which numerous elaborations took form. Another step in this process of clarifying the historicity of the Greek myths was taken by Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the century. Evans came from a scholarly family and as a youth developed a deep

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interest in ancient civilizations; his curiosity was further aroused by some sealstones bearing strange markings which were being found in great numbers on the island of Crete, especially in the vicinity of the city of Heraklion. Evans went to Crete to track down the source of these artifacts; he ended up revealing an entire prehellenic civilization that had long been forgotten by history, but whose memory lived on in Greek myth.81 As Evans knew, many Greek myths centred on the island of Crete: best known were the tales of a complicated Labyrinth inhabited by a monster called the Minotaur; of the love of Theseus and the Cretan princess Ariadne; of Pasiphae, the queen of Knossos, and her perverted passion for a bull; of the great craftsman Daedalus; and of Minos, king of Knossos, who ruled the waters of the Aegean. Once Evans had actually uncovered the palace at Knossos, these myths were recognized as reflections of this "Minoan" civilization (c. 30001400 a.c.). Now, for example, one could trace how the tale of a mazelike Labyrinth grew out of the haphazard layout of the palace at Knossos; how the myth of a Minotaur, a creature part man and part bull, arose out of bull rituals which were a vital part of the Minoan religion. Once more Greek myths were shown to possess a historical core. The important work begun by Schliemann and Evans is still going on today. In recent years archaeological investigations have continued to reveal historical elements in the corpus of Greek myth: Carl Biegen, for example, in his excavations in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese, uncovered a Mycenaean citadel which corresponds to the famous settlement of Pylos associated by Homer with wise King Nestor.82 Moreover, the decipherment of the Linear B tablets found in great numbers at Pylos and Knossos has also attested to Homeric authenticity by revealing that personal names which appear in the Iliad and Odyssey in fact belonged to "real" people in the Mycenaean age: examples include the names Hector, Ajax, Orestes, and even Achilles. The names of some divinities are also to be found on the Linear B tablets: Poseidon and Hephaestus are good examples.33 Clearly it is now impossible to argue seriously that Homer entirely "made up" the heroic material of his epics; that historical elements are contained within the Iliad and Odyssey is certain, and several books on this subject have recently appeared which devote themselves to sorting out Homeric fact and fiction.34 As the evidence for historical elements in the corpus of Greek myth was thus slowly accumulating, a scholar named Martin P. Nilsson published an extremely significant book, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1932 ). What Nilsson essentially did was study

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the geographical locations that were associated with the major Greek myths; what he discovered was that these "mythical" sites were in fact important places in the historical Mycenaean world. It would appear that such Mycenaean centres as Argos, Tiryns, Pylos, Thebes, and Mycenae itself gave rise to the myths which were transmitted orally down into the classical Greek world. Another important book, especially in regard to the myth of Atlantis, has been Legends of the Earth by Dorothy B. Vitaliano ( 1 973) . Examining myths from the point of view of a geologist, Vitaliano offers a convincing explanation of how historical geological events can create enduring myths, whether it be among the ancient Greeks or the more modern Hawaiian islanders. Such natural events as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions seem to have bequeathed a lasting heritage in the form of myth, and Vitaliano has coined the term "geomythology" to describe this phenomenon. Her basic thesis, that many myths have historical geological origins, is obviously of great significance in the case of Atlantis and its sudden disappearance in the course of one day and night. Not surprisingly, as a result of such recent work, a kind of euhemerism is now coming back into fashion. As Vitaliano herself has written, "Geologic processes or their results have left their impression on folklore in the form of euhemeristic legends embodying the more or less distorted memory of real occurrences, usually catastrophic."35 "The more or less distorted memory of real occurrences, usually catastrophic"—is this the reality behind the Platonic myth of Atlantis? If so, how deep is the distortion, and what is the historical core? Are we to place the myth of Atlantis in Kirk's "more historical" categories 4-6 or in the "less historical" category 3, the myths of early mankind? Such are the questions that need to be resolved. It has become obvious that there are many different kinds of myth and that Greek myth in particular is a complicated phenomenon. Thus, to a large extent, our answers to the questions raised by the tale of Atlantis will depend on our interpretation of the myth in its context and on our comprehension of how Plato himself, the original source of the tale, regarded "myth."

4 Plato and Myth THE LITERARY APPROACH TO MYTH

Myth was the basic raw material of Greek literature, dominating the genres of epic and drama to an extent that often puzzles the modern student.' Even the traditionally more personal genre of lyric verse came under its influence, from the massive mythical excursus of a Pindar to the more fleeting mythical allusions of a Sappho. This almost obsessive fascination with myth would characterize Greek literature as a whole from the Homeric to the Hellenistic period, from the Iliad and Odyssey to the Argonautica. Even Plato, who, as we shall see, looked with a critical eye at myth, nonetheless used it in his dialogues on occasion. Yet it would be misleading to suggest that Greek writers shared a uniform approach in their use of myth. In their eyes, myth was not static and fixed forever in an immutable form, but rather it was fluid and flexible, able to be reshaped at will. It was this flexibility of myth that endeared it to an author and enabled him to become more than a simple mythographer: the same myth could be employed by one writer to make a contemporary political point and by a second writer to comment upon current morality; the characterization could be altered, the sequence of events could be changed, or the scene of the action could be moved, all depending on the literary aim of the author himself.2 The myth, in brief, functioned as a kind of frame, within which the author was free to draw his particular portrait. To be sure, there were writers who were basically recorders of, rather than interpreters of, myth. The earliest and perhaps the greatest of these was Hesiod, whose Theogony is often used today as a sourcebook for the study of those Greek myths which centre upon the

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ancient gods and goddesses. Most poets, however, were not content with the straightforward recording of myths as received, but took a much more creative and interpretive approach. Illustrative of this attitude is the treatment of traditional material by the dramatist Aeschylus: in his Prometheus Bound, for example, Aeschylus altered the characterization of Prometheus, creating from the traditional practical jokers a highly moral and selfless saviour of mankind; in the Oresteia trilogy this same dramatist did not hesitate to change the setting of the Agamemnon tale from Mycenae to Argos in order to make a political point relevant to the Athens of his own day.' Moreover, Aeschylus and other authors felt free in their use of myth to insert a justification of modern institutions in traditional tales: Aeschylus, again in the Oresteia, justifies the role of the Areopagus court in cases of homicide by "projecting" that role back into the time of Orestes, and so gives a mythical origin to a historical entity. From such a liberal alteration of a myth it is not a large step to the free invention of a myth. A famous example of this process will serve as an illustration: in historical Thebes there were people who claimed descent from the royal family of Oedipus. If this claim was a source of pride, it was also a source of embarrassment: Oedipus, after all, had produced children by his own mother, and therefore those who were his descendants were ultimately the result of an incestuous union, abominable to all Greeks. There was a way, however, to extricate these Thebans from this predicament: a new "myth" was created which proclaimed that Oedipus' children had been born to him by a "first wife" and not by Jocasta, his mother. This myth, we know, was current in classical Thebes, although it never replaced the traditional version known so well today.5 Technically such inventions are not true myths; they are, however, given the appearance of being myths. An even more radical invention of myth can be seen in the Persians of Aeschylus. In that play Aeschylus takes historical events and treats them as though they were myth; the historical figures take on a larger-than-life appearance, the supernatural realm is intruded, the universe itself becomes involved in the action. What we have in the Persians is a mythical treatment of history, much akin to Kirk's sixth category of myth, the inventions of the historical period. As in the case of Croesus, historical figures have been translated into myth, and by this process Aeschylus is enabled to make a universal statement about human pride. Thus a Greek author had three alternatives at hand when approaching a myth: he could decide to record the myth exactly as received; he could prefer to alter the myth to suit his particular

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literary purpose; or he could even determine to create a new myth of his own, giving it all the trappings of a traditional tale. Clearly each author must be examined individually if we are to understand his personal use of myth. In the case of Plato, we must first try to determine his attitude towards myth. PLATO ON MYTH

Plato, like other Greek writers, was concerned with myth and its function. His dialogues contain numerous references to the nature of myth and its proper role in society, and thus provide us with primary evidence of Plato's "philosophy of myth." It will be helpful, before examining Plato's own use of myth, to listen to what the dialogues tell us about myth. One aspect of Plato's views on myth is well known today: his dislike, and rejection, of myths which portray divinity in a bad light. Like his contemporaries, Plato had been brought up on tales that featured the Olympian deities behaving in reprehensible fashions: Cronos mutilating his father, Ouranos; Zeus throwing Hephaestus out of Olympus; and the gods actually at war with one another are typical examples. In Plato's view true divinity does not behave like this, and it is wrong for poets to foster such false tales, especially since there are always people gullible enough to believe them: as Socrates says to Euthyphro in the dialogue of that name, "And you actually believe that war occurred among the gods, and there were dreadful hatreds, battles, and all sorts of fearful things like that? Such things as the poets tell of ..." (6).° In the Republic Plato has Socrates voice his objection to "any story [that] gives a bad image of the nature of gods and heroes," adding that "I do not think this should be told to foolish and young people" (2.377) . Later on in this same work, Socrates says of the poets, "They say that Asclepius was the son of Apollo and that he was bribed with gold to heal a rich man ... for which he was killed by lightning. ... we shall not believe... their statements" (3.4o8) .' The moral concern which underlay this attitude towards myth is illustrated by Plato's comments in his final work, Laws. The Athenian who delivers most of the discourse states that "we have in my own community literary narratives ... which treat of the gods.... I could certainly never commend them as salutary, nor as true at all" (1o.886).8 Such myths, according to Plato, set bad examples for human beings; if the gods were commonly believed to behave immorally, then humans could justify their own immoral behaviour: "Let none of us, if he offends in this sort, suffer himself to be gulled by the fictions of the poets.... let him never fancy his pilfering or

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robbing no deed of shame, but an act such as is done by the very gods themselves. That is a tale with neither truth nor semblance of truth about it" (12.941). With Plato holding such an opinion, it is not surprising that he maintains strict censorship of poetry in his ideal state. Yet it would be wrong to suppose that Plato was totally opposed to myth, especially since he himself uses myth in several of the dialogues. His attitude was more truly one of caution towards, and critical evaluation of, myth, and in this respect he seems not to have been alone in Athenian society : a revealing picture of contemporary scepticism towards myth is given us in the Phaedrus, when Phaedrus asks Socrates if he believes the myth about Boreas and Orithyia to be true. Socrates responds, "I should be quite in the fashion if I disbelieved it, as the men of science do. I might proceed to give a scientific account of how the maiden ... was blown by a gust of Boreas down from the rocks hard by, and having thus met her death was said to have been seized by Boreas" (229) 9 It is clear that there were "men of science" in Athens who were questioning the traditional tales and were explaining them in "rational" terms, or "demythologizing" them, in modern terminology. Socrates finds their activities clever and attractive, but he adds that he himself is too busy examining his own behaviour to spend time analysing myths. Plato seems to have been well aware that myths could be invented for social or political reasons. In the Lysis, for example, Ctesippus says of Hippothales, "In a sort of poem the other day, he gave us the whole account of Heracles' entertainment, telling us how their ancestor received that hero into his house on the strength of his relationship, being himself son of Zeus, by the daughter of the founder of Aexone.... Such are the old wives' tales that our lover here is ever singing" (205 ) .b0 It must have been common for wealthy and influential families to encourage belief in their descent from imposing figures of myth by inventing appropriate new myths. Such invented myths would certainly be to the advantage of their creators. Plato himself clearly saw the wider benefits that could be derived from invented tales and, as a result, was not averse to this process. In the Phaedrus he gives us an example of such a tale when Socrates tells the Egyptian myth of Theuth and Thamus; Phaedrus comments, "It is easy for you, Socrates, to make up tales from Egypt or anywhere else you fancy" (275). It is, however, in the Republic that the benefits of invented tales are made most clear. There Plato develops the concept of the "noble fiction, one of those necessary untruths" that serve a useful social purpose (3.414). Thus it is permissible for a ruler "to use lies for the good of the city" (3.389) ; if spreading a

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"noble fiction" will benefit the city and its citizens, then its literal "untruth" will become "poetic truth" and serve a good purpose. Such is the case with the so-called Phoenician tale in the third book of the Republic, which is overtly a tale invented to convince the citizens of the ideal state to accept their respective lots in life and live together in total harmony. As Socrates says, the lie can be "useful, like a drug. It is ... useful in the case of those stories we mentioned just now [that is, myths], because of our ignorance of what truly happened of old. We then make the fiction as like the truth as we can, and so make the lie or untruth useful" (2.382; italics mine) . As Plato makes clear, one reason why myth is so useful is that it is like a candy-coated drug which finds eager swallowers: as Protagoras is made to say, "Now shall I, as an old man speaking to his juniors, put my explanation in the form of a story or give it a reasoned argument? ... I think it will be pleasanter to tell you a story" (Protagoras 32o) .11 Protagoras proceeds to tell a myth about early mankind. Similarly, in Politicus the Stranger from Elea states, "Then we must begin all over again from another starting point and travel by another road.... We have to bring in some pleasant stories to relieve the strain. There is a mass of ancient legend, a large part of which we must now use for our purposes" (268).12 The Stranger then recounts a myth about cosmic cycles. As we shall see shortly, this particular myth is not a traditional tale, but is a Platonic invention in the guise of a traditional tale. It was invented by Plato to drive home a political and moral point. Because of the candy-coated nature of myth, such tales are especially useful in the education of the young; as the Athenian speaker in Laws bluntly asserts, "The youthful mind will be persuaded of anything, if one will take the trouble to persuade it" (2.663) . Myth is indeed an effective form of persuasion, which is why Protagoras, in the statement quoted earlier, chose to tell a tale rather than to give "his juniors" a reasoned argument. The youthful mind is receptive to myth, as anyone with young children can easily attest. Thus, when the Stranger from Elea wants to get the attention of his audience, he says, "Come then, listen closely to my story as a child would" (Politicos 268). As Socrates says in the Republic about the education of children, "We first tell stories to children. These are, in general, untrue, though there is some truth in them" (2.377). This very receptivity of the young mind to myth, however, brings us back to Plato's concern with "improper myth." The young must be told the proper kind of myths if they are to develop into responsible, moral adults; myths such as those of Ouranos and Cronos should not be impressed upon their pliable minds (Republic 2 .377) . Even

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presenting such myths in an allegorical fashion will not help, since "the young cannot distinguish what is allegorical from what is not and the beliefs they acquire at that age are hard to expunge and usually remain unchanged. That may be the reason why it is most important that the first stories they hear should be well told and dispose them to virtue" (Republic 2.378). In sum, it is clear that Plato's attitude towards myth was ambivalent. Many traditional tales contained what were, to him, unacceptable elements, and yet the mythic form was undeniably an attractive one. Rather than throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, Plato decided to be selective, to use only those parts of myth that were deemed beneficial and, when occasion demanded, to create new myths that would benefit society. Such myths would be especially useful in indoctrinating the young mind towards virtue, since we "first tell stories to children," a comment that ought to be borne in mind when we read, in the Timaeus, "0 Solon, you Greeks are only children." THE MYTHS OF PLATO

To come to a valid conclusion on the historical reality of Plato's myth of Atlantis requires an examination of other myths found in the works of Plato. Are such other myths traditional or invented? Do they have any basis in historical reality? Does Plato generally act as a conserver or an inventor of myth? Moreover, if Plato's myths are found to be traditional, to which of Kirk's strata of myth do they properly belong, the less historical or more historical? And, finally, do the other myths of Plato show connections with the Greek Bronze Age, that period which, as we have seen, often gave rise to myths with a historical core? If, at the end of such an examination, we can conclude that Plato had a tendency towards employing myths with historical elements, then the myth of Atlantis could also be that kind of tale; of course, the reverse might also be found to be true, namely, that Plato tended to use myths with no discernible historical element. First, however, a distinction must be made between the use of myth as integral subject matter and the use of myth as brief allusion. What we are concerned with here are detailed narratives introduced into the dialogues on a scale similar to that of the Atlantis myth; brief allusions to mythical heroes, or to the gods, are not comparable. Like other Greek authors, Plato would on occasion illustrate a point briefly by alluding to a famous myth: for example, in the Symposium Phaedrus, in order to show the power of Love, mentions Alcestis' famous sacrifice of her own life on behalf of her husband (179) ; he

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then proceeds to mention Orpheus and Achilles, also as mythical exempla. Likewise, in the Laws the Athenian refers briefly to Oedipus, Phoenix, and Hippolytus as examples of what happens when sons show their parents disrespect (11.931). None of these allusions are elaborated or developed into a true narrative form; therefore they are omitted from this analysis. Turning, then, to the myths of Plato, can we find any which undeniably reflect ancient traditions and which cannot be called Platonic inventions? One which immediately seems to qualify is the myth of judgement found in the Gorgias. That dialogue, concerned with both rhetoric and the proper conduct of one's life, asks "What is the greatest good for mankind?" and, as the discussion develops, Socrates tries to show that for a man to do wrong is much worse than for him to suffer wrong. He asserts that "to arrive in the other world with a soul surcharged with many wicked deeds is the worst of all evils. And if you like, I am ready to tell you a tale which will prove that this is so" (522) .13 To which Callicles replies, "Well, since you have finished all else you may finish this too." Socrates begins his tale with, "Give ear then, as they say, to a very fine story, which you, I suppose, will consider fiction, but I consider fact, for what I am going to tell you I shall recount as the actual truth" (523) . The myth recounted concerns the judgement of the dead, when the righteous depart to the Islands of the Blessed, while the wicked are sent to Tartarus. Socrates states that in the early times men used to be judged while they were still alive, with their clothes on; since this procedure led to injustice, Zeus decided that men must be judged after death, with their souls naked. Prometheus was sent to end man's foreknowledge of death, and Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus began to judge the naked soul. Socrates concludes the myth by stating that "this is what I have heard, Callicles, and I believe it to be true, and from this story I infer the following conclusion," namely, that death is the separation of the soul and body and that souls are judged after death, with rewards and punishment meted out. Socrates is aware that Callicles might not believe this myth, as his opening comment (523) clearly indicates. At the end of the tale, Socrates reasserts its truth : "Now I have been convinced by these stories, Callicles" (526) , and "Now perhaps all this seems to you like an old wife's tale and you despise it, and there would be nothing strange in despising it if our searches could discover anywhere a better and truer account" (527). In other words, the tale just told is the best account presently available; moreover, it serves to incite us all to live righteously. Thus the Gorgias myth contains a moral lesson vital to Socratic doctrine and is integral to the entire dialogue.

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Socrates' tale is full of traditional elements: stories of the Underworld, of Tartarus and the Islands of the Blessed, and of the judges in the Underworld seem to go back to the earliest periods of Greek culture. The works of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and Aeschylus, all before Plato, preserve similar elements; there is even a Bronze Age connection in the figures of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. Thus it would be perverse to deny the truly "traditional" aspect of this Platonic myth. Can we, however, state that this traditional tale has a historical element of any kind? Socrates, of course, claims that the story is true, much like Critias claims that the Atlantis tale is true in the Timaeus. Despite this assertion, it is obvious that the truth of the myth is unknowable for living human beings and that is why Socrates himself is not surprised at Callicles' scepticism. To assert, then, that the Gorgias myth is literally true is impossible for those who are still alive; we can, like Socrates, believe it to be true, but that does not mean it is true. In short, Plato has given us a myth that is poetically true, as opposed to being literally true; the tale is not a scientific account, but a poetic vision designed to turn us from sin. It is a traditional tale of the less historical, early mankind type documented by Kirk; it is also the type of tale that Plato would deem beneficial: the "noble fiction" whose literal untruth does not prevent it from being at the same time poetically true and morally useful. A comparable myth can be found in the Phaedo, the famous account of Socrates' last hours which concerns itself with the immortality of the soul. Eventually the discussion turns to the idea that divine justice will manifest itself after death, and this leads, naturally enough, to another myth of judgement. To set the scene, Socrates states that, after the souls have been judged, each one goes to its proper place, be it heaven or hell. This idea then gives rise to a geographical comment from Socrates: "There are many wonderful regions in the earth, and the earth itself is neither in nature nor in size such as geographers suppose it to be—so someone has assured me."14 When Simmias asks Socrates to elaborate, the philosopher says, "I don't think that it calls for the skill of a Glaucus to explain what my belief is, but to prove that it is true seems to me to be too difficult even for a Glaucus.... However, there is no reason why I should not tell you what I believe about the appearance of the earth and regions in it" (t 08) . Socrates thereupon begins an account which he soon terms an "imaginative description" (t t o) : in brief, he states that there are many "hollow" places in the earth and that we live in such a hollow rather than on the true surface; there ensues an "imaginative de-

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scription" of the real earth, complete with utopian elements: those who live there are ever free from disease and their temples are actually inhabited by the gods. The hollows, our "lower" abode, are interconnected by underground channels with rivers of fire and mud like those in Sicily; one hollow leads to Tartarus, which is then described along with the rest of the Underworld. The judgement of the newly dead is next portrayed, when "neutral" souls are sent to Acheron, evil souls to Tartarus, and good souls to the surface of the true earth above the hollows. This tale, according to Socrates, contains a moral : "The reasons which we have already described provide ground enough ... for leaving nothing undone to attain during life some measure of goodness and wisdom, for the prize is glorious and the hope great" (I 14.) . At once Socrates adds, "Of course, no reasonable man ought to insist that the facts are exactly as I have described them. But that either this or something very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitations ... is both a reasonable contention and a belief worth risking, for the risk is a noble one. We should use such accounts to inspire ourselves with confidence" (r14). The purpose of this myth, then, is moral and religious; it is not a scientific excursus. The tale, full of very precise detail (as is the Atlantis myth) , is a vision of the experiences of the human soul in the afterlife, similar to the vision in the Gorgias. Like that myth, the Phaedo tale presents poetic, rather than literal, truth. The myth of the hollow earth, as it is sometimes called, differs, however, from the Gorgias myth in that it contains very few traditional elements. Aside from mentioning the names of some traditional places in the Underworld and giving brief descriptions, the myth contains no major elements that are recorded elsewhere in Greek literature. Given the fact that Socrates himself terms his tale an "imaginative description," we must classify the myth as a Platonic invention. The Republic, perhaps Plato's greatest work, also contains a judgement myth : the so-called tale of Er. Once again the topic which leads to the telling of the myth is that of the rewards to befall the just person. To begin his tale Socrates states that the rewards to be gained in life "are as nothing in number and magnitude compared with those that await ... after death.... It is not a tale of Alcinous I shall tell you, but that of a brave man, Er, the son of Armenias, a Pamphylian by race who once died in war" (10.614) . The myth that follows recounts how Er revived on his funeral pyre to tell of what he had seen in the afterlife: he had witnessed the souls of the dead undergoing judgement, with those who had lived just lives

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ascending into the heavens; there were souls which had completed their terms in the afterlife and were preparing for reincarnation; there was an elaborate Spindle of Necessity, surrounded by the three Fates; Er finally watched as the souls about to enter upon life again chose the lives they were to lead. Although these souls had to drink of the water of Lethe in order to forget their past lives, Er was prevented from drinking and therefore awoke on his pyre able to recall all that had taken place. "And so," says Socrates, "the story was preserved and not lost. It could save us if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the stream of Forgetfulness and not be defiled in our soul" (I o.62 I) . While the myth of Er does contain a few traditional elements, it is essentially a nontraditional tale. "Er" appears only in the writings of Plato and seems to be an almost symbolic Everyman, whose experience is intended to induce all men to pass their lives justly. Like the myths of the Gorgias and the Phaedo, the tale of Er is designed to teach and inspire, not to provide a scientific account of what happens after death. It is yet another example of a Platonic tale that is literally untrue, but, more importantly, poetically true, in that it contains a kind of spiritual truth that "could save us if we believe it." To view the myth as an actual historical account is to pervert the intention of Plato. The myth of Er, however, is noteworthy in another respect. Plato has here used the literary device of a character who discovers extraordinary things while on a long journey; on his return to his own society, the character recounts what he has experienced; the tale he tells is a beneficial one and is unrecorded elsewhere. In these respects, the figure of Er is curiously reminiscent of Solon in the Timaeus: Solon, too, went on a lengthy journey; discovered wonderful things, unknown before; returned to his society and recorded his experience. It may be, then, that one ought to view both "Er" and "Solon" as literary conveniences employed by Plato to paint a more detailed picture. The Republic contains two other myths besides that of Er: the ring of invisibility, and the Phoenician tale.10 The former tale concerns an ancestor of King Gyges, the ruler of Lydia in the early seventh century B.c. Glaucon introduces the tale to show man's supposed inclination for wrongdoing: "If we imagined ourselves granting to both the just and the unjust the freedom to do whatever they liked, we could then follow both of them and observe where their desires led them, and we would catch the just man redhanded travelling the same road as the unjust" (2.359) . To illustrate this controversial point, Glaucon tells the story of a Lydian shepherd who found

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a gold ring on the finger of a corpse; he soon discovered that twisting the ring a certain way made him completely invisible. He thereupon "committed adultery with the king's wife, attacked the king with her help, killed him, and took over the kingdom." Glaucon's point is clear: give men this type of power, which provides total immunity, and they will naturally do evil, for "no one is just willingly, but under compulsion" (2.36o) . The so-called Phoenician tale has already been mentioned as "a noble fiction, one of those necessary untruths of which we have spoken." Socrates describes it as "a Phoenician story which the poets say has happened in many places and made people believe them; it has not happened among us, though it might, and it will take a great deal of persuasion to have it believed" (3.414). The myth asserts that all people were nurtured inside the earth and are therefore "earthborn brothers"; some, however, have gold in their nature, others silver, and others iron and bronze. Thus Nature has decreed that, while all men are brothers, they are of different qualities. The aim of this noble fiction is socio-political: in Plato's ideal state, each citizen must accept his proper social role; the class divisions basic to that state are justified mythically by the Phoenician tale: the golden men are destined to rule, the silver men are to be auxiliaries, and the iron-bronze men are to be workers. If the citizens can be persuaded to believe this, and so accept their given roles, then the state will prosper. And so Socrates asks, "Can you suggest any device which will make our citizens believe this story?" (3.415). Glaucon replies that, while the first generation of citizens will not believe the tale, their sons and later generations might. Both the myth of invisibility and that of the earthborn men of metallic natures are nontraditional. The former looks very much like one of Kirk's inventions of the historical period, having its origin in tales that arose around the historical Gyges; in this respect it is much akin to the myth of Croesus and obviously has no Bronze Age roots. As for its historicity, suffice it to say that no modern commentator on the myth regards it as being more than a very "tall tale." The Phoenician tale is patently a Platonic invention, created to serve an immediate purpose in the dialogue; the myth is unique to Plato.1e The concept of earthborn men, however, is not confined to the Phoenician tale of the Republic, for it makes a much more impressive appearance in the Politicus (also commonly known as the Statesman) . One of the primary concerns of this dialogue is a definition of the statesman and his art; this concern leads to a more general discussion of the various types of government and the role of law. In the midst of the conversation on the true statesman, the Stranger,

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as previously noted, informs the young Socrates that he would like to "relieve the strain" by introducing a tale from the "mass of ancient legend" (268) . The Stranger's myth begins with a reference to one of the bestknown traditional tales of ancient Greece: the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes. The Stranger, however, is concerned with only one part of that myth, namely, the belief that the movement of heavenly bodies was altered at that time by an act of Zeus. Having made mention of this, the Stranger directs his attention to another very traditional tale: the reign of Cronos. He also focuses here on one aspect of the myth : the belief that "men of that former age were earthborn and not born of human parents" (269) . According to the Stranger, "All these stories originate from the same event in cosmic history," and that event is to become the true subject of the Stranger's myth. There ensues the complex myth of alternating world cycles which is not recorded elsewhere before Plato. The claim of the myth is that God controls the rotation of the universe at certain times, but at other times he "lets go of the helm" and refrains from guiding the world. Thus there are alternating cycles of divine control and divine abstention from control. When God is at the helm, the universe rotates in one direction; when God, however, withdraws, the universe reverses its direction of rotation, resulting in a cosmic crisis in which "there is widespread destruction of living creatures" (27o), caused by massive earthquakes. The Stranger explains further that, when God is in control, as was the case during the age of Cronos, human beings are born from the earth. Moreover, those who live in such periods enjoy "all good things . . . without labour" (271), living in a kind of paradise watched over by specially appointed tutelary deities. On the other hand, when God withdraws his control, as is the case in the present age, men are born of human parents and lose the blessings of paradise. The Stranger goes on to assert that, when the universe "is guided by the divine pilot, it produces much good and but little evil in the creatures it raises and sustains. When it must travel on without God, things go well enough in the years immediately after he abandons control, but as time goes on and forgetfulness of God arises in it, the ancient condition of chaos also begins to assert its sway" (273). Eventually, however, God will return his guiding hand to the universe to restore order. Till then mankind remains bereft of divine care, a condition which once necessitated the assistance furnished by Prometheus and Hephaestus to enable the orphaned human race to survive. The Stranger then concludes, "Here let our work of story-

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telling come to its end, but now we must use the story to discern the extent of the mistake we made in our earlier argument in our delineation of the king or statesman" (274). Thus, "in the economy of the dialogue the myth of the cycles was introduced for the purpose of clarifying the concept of the royal ruler."17 The idea of world cycles, separated by natural catastrophes, is the core around which Plato constructs his myth. As J. A. Stewart has stated, "The doctrine of periodical terrestrial `catastrophes', universal or local, leaving on each occasion a few scattered survivors ... was part of the `science' of Plato's day, and was afterwards a prominent tenet of the Peripatetics."18 Taking his cue from this type of belief, Plato has created a nontraditional tale which serves nicely to explain the traditional tales about Atreus, Thyestes, and the age of Cronos; in brief, he has given us an aetiological myth. The creation is a rich one: there are hints of Hesiod, "scientific" doctrines of catastrophes, elements of utopianism, and, indeed, echoes of Atlantis in the picture of a natural catastrophe leaving few survivors. The very notion of earthborn men can be traced back to the traditional tales of Cadmus and Jason, although these myths have little in common with Plato's. In sum, the Politicus myth is an imaginative invention, an unhistoric fancy. Catastrophes, earthborn men, and the age of Cronos also play a role in the Laws. Three men, an Athenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan, are discussing what kind of law there ought to be in a good constitution; as they walk along a dusty road in Crete, they decide to create the constitution and laws, in theory at least, for a new settlement the leaders of Knossos are then undertaking. As the discussion develops, attention is given to the topics of truth and persuasion, since the Cretan believes that, glorious as truth is, it is often hard to convince men of it (2.663) . To this the Athenian responds with a query about "that most improbable fable of the man from Sidon—was it easy to convince anyone of that? ... They say teeth were once sown in the ground and armed men sprang up from them. And yet the example is striking proof for a lawgiver that the youthful mind will be persuaded of anything, if one will take the trouble to persuade it" (2.663-64). The Athenian's attitude towards the traditional myth of Cadmus and the Spartoi, or Sown Men, is clear: only the gullible accept such tales. In the third book of Laws the discussion turns to the prior existence of numerous cities with numerous constitutions. The Athenian asks, "Then what view do you both take of the ancient legends? Have they any truth behind them? ... Those which tell of repeated destructions of mankind by floods, pestilences, and from various other causes,

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which leave only a handful of survivors" (3.677) . The Cretan replies that "that kind of story must be perfectly credible to any man," and the Athenian, in order to begin his picture of the ascent of man. says, "Let us suppose one of those various exterminations, that which was once effected by the Flood." There ensues the myth of the flood and its aftermath. According to the tale, only mountain-dwellers survived the disaster, all lowland cities having been destroyed along with their technology. "Progress" therefore had to begin anew. At first there were no wars and no litigation, since people were equally neither rich nor poor; but, as time passed, property became important and laws had to be created. Further time pa ssed, and the sack of Troy took place; later the cities of Argos, Messene, and Lacedaemon were founded, until we come to the present day. Although this tale contains several very traditional elements (such as the flood, sack of Troy), it is truly more of a Platonic parable of human progress than a proper myth, moving as it does from the remotest period of myth to the historical founding of Greek cities. Its function has best been described by A. E. Taylor: "To illustrate the way in which historical development of institutions is conditioned, we imagine what would happen if a natural cataclysm destroyed the whole of a community with the exception of a few shepherds and goatherds."19 Thus, the traditional myth of the flood (minus the trappings of Deucalion) serves as a causative event, enabling Plato to present his own view of human development. Likewise, "the traditional story of the disasters of the return from Troy and of the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnese also has a lesson for us. The narrative of the conflicts ... throws light on the way in which a `worldwar' changes the face of history."20 In the end, we can view the traditional elements of flood and Troy as allusions, as lessons from the past, rather than as a unified myth. In the fourth book of Laws, Plato turns again to the fabled age of Cronos in terms very reminiscent of the tale of the Politicus. The immediate topic is constitutions, and the Athenian says that "we may need to employ parable" (4.713) if the discussion is to proceed; he then states that "in the age of Cronos—so they say—there was a much earlier form of settled government, and a very happy one." This was a time of bliss for mankind, ruled as we were by beneficent divine spirits. The moral of the tale is given beyond doubt: "So the story teaches us today, and teaches us truly, that when a community is ruled not by God, but by man, its members have no refuge from evil and misery. We should do our utmost—this is the moral—to reproduce the life of the age of Cronos" (4.713-14). Here is one

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of the few myths of Plato that preserves its traditionality. Yet, the myth of the age of Cronos clearly belongs to the less historical types of Greek myth, those concerned with early mankind and the Olympians. Plato's interest in myths of early mankind is also attested by the tale told by Protagoras in the dialogue of that name. The Protagoras deals essentially with virtue and with the question "Can virtue be taught?" The myth begins after Protagoras decides to tell a pleasant story to support his argument that virtue can indeed be taught (32o). The tale recounts the creation of mortal creatures out of earth and fire ;21 then Epimetheus and Prometheus are commissioned to equip these creatures for survival. Epimetheus gives gifts to all creatures but man, for whom he has nothing left in stock; as a result, Prometheus commits his famous theft on behalf of mankind. Thus equipped, man at first lives in scattered groups; there are no cities, since man has been given no political skill. Finally, to prevent the demise of man, Zeus sends Hermes to distribute respect (atb6s) and justice (Slim) to all men alike. Thus, every man now has a share of political wisdom: "all men do in fact believe that everyone shares a sense of justice and civic virtue" (323). Such a sense, however, Protagoras explains, is neither innate nor automatic, "but is acquired by instruction and taking thought." Protagoras' tale of man, Epimetheus, and Prometheus is basically a traditional story with strong Hesiodic elements.22 Plato has here taken a standard myth, kept it largely intact, and used it in support of a philosophical argument. In his treatment of this tale, Plato has taken a conservative approach that is not often duplicated elsewhere in the dialogues. Of particular interest to the myth of Atlantis is another Egyptian tale, that of Theuth, found in both the Philebus and the Phaedrus. Theuth, or Thoth as his name is usually written, was the Egyptian god of wisdom who was responsible for the arts, letters, speech, and science. Characterized by the ibis, his sacred bird, Theuth served as the scribe of the gods and the "registrar" of the afterlife. He also seems to have functioned as a moon god. In pictorial representations, Theuth is either ibis-headed or dog-headed.23 This traditional Egyptian god makes a brief appearance in the Philebus, a dialogue on wisdom and pleasure and on their relative merits. In the course of the discussion, Socrates introduces the doctrine of "the one and the many": "All things ... that are ever said to be consist of a one and a many, and have in their nature a conjunction of limit and unlimitedness" (i 6d) .24 This doctrine, here attributed to the gods and men of old,2b soon leads to a discussion of the

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alphabet and letters: at z8b Socrates states, "We might take our letters again to illustrate what I mean now." The myth then recounted concerns the discovery by Theuth of letters, a tale that seems to be authentically Egyptian. Plato, however, "diverts" the myth into an exemplum in support of the doctrine of the one and the many. We soon find ourselves immersed in an examination of the different kinds of pleasure and wisdom (the one and the many). The dialogue concludes that neither wisdom nor pleasure is alone sufficient, but that the best life for man includes both. Wisdom, nonetheless, may be seen as the superior of the two. Theuth makes another appearance in the Phaedrus, Plato's famous dialogue on rhetoric, love, and beauty, in which love is characterized as a "divine madness" that elevates the human soul. While talking about proper and improper writing, Socrates brings in a tale of Theuth and Thamus: "I can tell you the tradition that has come down from our forefathers, but they alone know the truth of it... . The story is that in the region of Naucratis in Egypt there dwelt one of the old gods of the country, the god to whom the bird called Ibis is sacred, his own name being Theuth" (274). As Socrates says, Theuth invented numbers, calculation, and writing. At the time of these inventions, the king of Egypt was Thamus, another name for the god commonly known as Ammon; an interview is said to have taken place between Theuth and Thamus in which Theuth extolled the blessings to be brought to men by letters. Whereas Theuth viewed letters as a helper and aid to memory, Thamus saw in the invention an inducer of forgetfulness. When Socrates ends the tale, Phaedrus comments, "It is easy for you, Socrates, to make up tales from Egypt or anywhere else you fancy" (275), to which Socrates replies that the important matter to be considered is whether the content ( that is, the "message") of the tale is true or false; thus all that really matters is whether the evaluation of letters provided by the myth is true or not. Phaedrus at once accepts this rebuke, adding, "I agree that the man of Thebes [Thamus] is right in what he said about writing." Socrates concludes that the written word is but a reminder of what we already know and that it is inferior to thought and discussion. Plato's use of Theuth in two dialogues attests to his familiarity with Egyptian legend. Yet, it must be observed that, rather than recount a detailed narrative about Theuth, Plato merely brings him and his invention into the discussion briefly in order to turn attention to the topic of letters. Indeed, the conversation said to have taken place between Theuth and Thamus looks very much like a Platonic invention, as is implied by Phaedrus' comment and Socrates' response

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to it. Moreover, it is obvious that the appearance of a traditional god in a tale does not make the tale itself traditional; all it demonstrates is that the author knew the name and attributes of a particular deity. In the case of Theuth, it is probable that most educated Greeks of Plato's time would know of this Egyptian divinity and his connection with letters, just as educated Egyptians would know of the Hellenic Zeus. The tale of Theuth and Thamus is not the only myth of the Phaedrus. At a break in the conversation, Socrates makes note of the cicadas overhead, and refers to their supposed power of granting a boon to mankind (259) . He then tells a tale of how the cicadas once were men, long before the Muses came into existence. When the Muses arrived among them, some of these men became totally intoxicated with singing; so carried away were they that they neither ate nor drank, and so they died. From these creatures sprang the race of cicadas, whose new function was to tell the Muses which people honoured them among the present race of mankind. And so, says Socrates, "there is every reason for us not to yield to slumber in the noontide, but to pursue our talk," thereby showing honour to the Muses. Thus ends what is a delightful folktale-fable, an interlude whose historicity ought not concern us; whether it is a "traditional tale" or not cannot be determined on present evidence.`e The best known of Plato's works on love is the Symposium, a series of after-dinner speeches at a party hosted by Agathon. To retell the tales of that party, Plato has a certain Apollodorus recount them to a friend many years later; Apollodorus, we learn, got his information from one Aristodemus, who had actually been present at the symposium. Having established this chain of communication (not unlike that of the Atlantis tale), Plato re-creates the party for us. Several of the speeches recounted contained myth, although to different degrees. Pausanias' speech, for example, concerns the existence of "two Aphrodites" (c 8o) ; according to this speaker, there are two goddesses and two different kinds of love: the heavenly Aphrodite, born from Ouranos, brings a higher, more spiritual type of love than the earthy Aphrodite, born of Zeus and Dione. Here we seem to have more of a mythical allusion than a full-blown myth: Pausanias has taken the fact that Greek myth recorded two different birth stories for Aphrodite, and he has created a kind of allegory to define the nature of love. His speech thus contains "myth" but does not recount myth, and in this respect reminds us of the tales of Theuth. The speech of Aristophanes, however, does recount a fully developed myth (189). According to the comic playwright, the original

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nature of the human creature was quite different from what we now know : at first human beings were globular in shape, each having four arms, four legs, and two faces. In addition there were three, rather than the present two, sexes: male, female, and male-female. Unfortunately, these human creatures became guilty of the sin of arrogance, and Zeus decided to punish them by cutting them all in two. The point of this peculiar tale soon becomes clear: according to Aristophanes, love is in reality the pursuit of one's "other half," the result of our yearning to recover our lost wholeness. The tale told by Aristophanes is undoubtedly a Platonic invention with no traditional elements. Not surprisingly, the comic poet creates a comic tale which in itself is not meant to be taken seriously. One should bear in mind, moreover, that, of all poetic genres in ancient Greece, it was comedy that relied to the greatest extent on invented, rather than traditional, plots. Thus, to have Aristophanes present his own creation is perfectly natural and appropriate. The final myth of the Symposium is much less elaborate and is usually referred to as Diotima's tale. At 201 Socrates says, "I want to talk about some lessons I was given, once upon a time, by a Mantinean woman called Diotima."27 According to Diotima, Love was the child of Resource (Poros) and Need (Penia), born on Aphrodite's birthday: "Resource ... wandered out into the garden of Zeus and sank into a heavy sleep, and Need, thinking that to get a child by Resource would mitigate her penury, lay down beside him and in time was brought to bed of Love" (203). Traditionally Love (or Eros) was believed to be the son of Aphrodite and Ares, or, alternatively, the son of Zephyrus and Iris; nowhere else is he given the parentage claimed by Diotima. Therefore Diotima's myth is a nontraditional invention which serves an allegorical purpose: it presents a graphic expression of the abstract idea that love exists between two extremes, that it is not an absolute but is a striving towards an absolute.28 PLATO'S USE OF MYTH: CONCLUSION

What has become abundantly clear through close study of the Platonic myths is that myth, to Plato, served a useful function as an emotive form of persuasion. It provided what he termed "another road" to truth (Politicus 268), appealing to the spirit rather than to the intellect. The literal truth of a myth was therefore subordinate to its spiritual truth: as Eric Voegelin has written, "A myth can never be `untrue' because it would not exist unless it had its experiential basis in the movements of the soul which it symbolizes."" The fact that a myth always has "truth" in spiritual terms should

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not imply, however, that it also has "truth" in historical terms. As we have seen, Plato felt free, as occasion demanded, to invent appropriate myths for his dialogues; these myths were his "noble fictions," whose poetic truth was basic to his philosophy. Indeed, our investigation has shown that Plato was much more inclined to invent myths than to rely on the more traditional tales of Greek society: nontraditional, invented tales appear twice as often in the dialogues as traditional tales. Moreover, those few traditional tales which do appear are basically concerned with the lot of early mankind (Kirk's third category of myth). There is a noticeable dearth in the dialogues of the so-called heroic myths so popular with other Greek writers, and so famous for containing historical cores. It would appear that that particular type of myth was not considered useful for Plato's philosophical purpose. What does this mean, then, for the myth of Atlantis? First, it means that Plato is twice as likely to have invented it as to have recorded an authentic tradition; our examination has shown that, while we cannot rule out Atlantis as a pure traditional tale, we must face the probability that Plato took his usual "liberal" approach in presenting that myth. Second, it means that the insistence on the "truth" of the Atlantis legend by Socrates and Critias should not blind us to the possibility that this "truth" is of the spiritual, rather than historical, kind; Plato, after all, showed a strong interest, as we have seen, in myths of judgement because they graphically presented important spiritual truths, and the tale of Atlantis certainly involves an act of divine judgement. In sum, there is reason to look upon the myth of Atlantis with cautious scepticism. Had Plato's other myths consistently revealed traditional elements that could have some (even slight) historical basis, we could be relatively confident that such was also the case with Atlantis. As it is, we must open our eyes to the possibility that the tale of Atlantis is a Platonic invention.

5 The Atlantic Location THE EVIDENCE OF PLATO

If Plato did in fact accurately preserve an ancient historical tradition in his tale of Atlantis, then what he tells us about this island ought to stand up under close scientific scrutiny. Therefore we must try to verify Plato's statements about the location, size, date, and destruction of Atlantis. If the available evidence supports the prior existence of such an island, Plato's account will gain in historical authority; if, on the other hand, present evidence denies the existence of such an island, the possibility that Plato invented Atlantis increases. Assuming for the moment that Plato's account is accurate, we can be sure of the location of Atlantis. In both the Timaeus and the Critias Plato makes it very clear that the lost island once stood in the Atlantic Ocean, outside the pillars of Heracles. As Critias states in the Timaeus (24e-25a), the power of Atlantis came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean [Ex Toü 'ArXavrLKOÜ ir€X6youi], 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. In the Critias Plato has Critias refer to "the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them" (I o8e) . To an ancient Greek the pillars of Heracles were located at Gibraltar, where they

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had traditionally been erected by Heracles during the course of his labours; as Apollodorus recorded the tale, Heracles travelled to Libya and then to Tartessos, where "he set up, as tokens of his travel, two pillars opposite each other at the boundaries of Europe and Libya" (2.107) . Thus, those who lived within the pillars were the peoples of the Mediterranean, and those outside the pillars had to live in the Atlantic Ocean. If the location of Plato's Atlantis is not in doubt, neither is its immense size : both dialogues insist that Atlantis was "larger than Libya and Asia put together." Now "Libya" to an ancient Greek meant North Africa, and "Asia" referred to Asia Minor, essentially present-day Turkey. It is thus clear that Plato had no small island in mind for his Atlantis, but an island of truly continental proportions. We can, however, gain a somewhat more precise idea of the vast dimensions of Atlantis from the Critias. For example, at i i 8a we are told that the fertile plain of Atlantis' royal city measured 3,000 stades in length and 2,000 stades in breadth. Given the fact that the ancient Greek stade was equal to approximately 186 metres, the plain measured some 37 2 X 557 kilometres, having a total area of about 207,20o square kilometres.' Yet this plain was only a modest part of the total landmass of Atlantis, as is indicated by Plato's statement that the whole island had been divided by Poseidon into ten sections, only one of which was composed of the royal city with its attendant plain (ii3a—I I4e). Even if we were to assume that the other nine portions of the island were each somewhat smaller in size than the royal city and its plain, the total area of Atlantis would still be in the range of some 1,600,000-1,goo,000 square kilometres. By comparison Atlantis would be significantly larger than Alberta and British Columbia combined; almost three times the size of Texas; or slightly smaller than Greenland or Saudi Arabia. Moreover, given the fact that the area of the Mediterranean Sea is approximately 2,500,000 square kilometres, one can easily see that Plato could find little room inside the pillars of Heracles for his island. Its size alone would dictate the location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. Plato also tells us when this huge landmass existed in the Atlantic Ocean. In the Timaeus the Egyptian priest informs Solon that Greece had been founded 1,000 years earlier than Egypt, whose institutions were recorded as being 8,000 years old; therefore the Athenians of the Atlantis tale lived some g,000 years before Solon. Placing Solon around 56o B.C. provides an approximate date of 9560 B.c. for the Athenian-Atlantean war. This date is confirmed in the Critias (io8e). Finally, in the Timaeus (25c—d), Plato gives us detailed information about the catastrophic end of Atlantis:

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But afterwards [that is, after the Athenians had thrown back the Atlantean menace] 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. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. Likewise in the Critias we are told that Atlantis was overwhelmed by earthquakes, and "became an impassable barrier of mud to those voyagers from hence who attempt to cross the ocean which lies beyond" (I o8e) . Thus, while Plato fails to provide a precise date for the sinking of Atlantis, he does insist on a sudden catastrophe, caused by violent earthquakes, which resulted in the mountainous island being swallowed up by the sea; the only reminder of its once glorious existence was the mud which clogged the sea in that area, making navigation difficult. And so Plato leaves us with a continental-sized island in the Atlantic Ocean which suffered a sudden annihilation by earthquake sometime around 9500 B.C. To test the plausibility of this picture, it is necessary to turn from Plato to the evidence provided by later investigations. Much of this evidence will come from the science of geology; some of it, however, is taken from such realms as sociology, anthropology, botany, and zoology. In general all the evidence thus far marshalled on the subject can be broken down into two categories: cultural evidence and physical evidence. THE CULTURAL EVIDENCE

For many years, especially while the science of geology was young, the arguments advanced in behalf of the former existence of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean were based on supposed cultural similarities between peoples of the Old and New Worlds. Taking their cue from Ignatius Donnelly, early seekers after Atlantis shared a common conviction that the lost island had once stretched from the western coast of Europe to the eastern coast of the Americas, thereby enabling a relatively easy exchange of peoples and cultures. Indeed, like Donnelly, many of these researchers proposed that Atlantis had been the original source of all civilization and that, before its untimely demise, Atlantis had disseminated its advanced culture both east and west, to Babylon and Egypt, to Mexico and Peru, and even to India and Indochina. When the end came to Atlantis, its high culture was carried on by its "colonies" in Europe, Africa, and America, while all that remained of it physically were the Azores, Madeira, and the

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Canary Islands, which had been mountains on the former landmass. To prove that Atlantis had played this key role in the development of civilization (a role not claimed for it in the dialogues of Plato), Donnelly and his disciples had to demonstrate the essential unity of all cultures. This could be done by focusing only upon isolated features which appeared to be common to widely dispersed cultures, and then postulating an original "homeland" in the lost Atlantis. The method employed is best illustrated by a quotation from Donnelly himself : If we find on both sides of the Atlantic precisely the same arts, sciences, religious beliefs, habits, customs, and traditions, it is absurd to say that the peoples of the two continents arrived separately, by precisely the same steps, at precisely the same ends.... If, then, we prove that, on both sides of the Atlantic, civilizations were found substantially identical, we have demonstrated that they must have descended one from the other, or have radiated from some common source.' When Donnelly's book was first published in 1882, sociological and anthropological researches were, unfortunately, no more advanced than geological research. Modern research in these areas, especially in regard to the Amerind cultures of the New World, has now negated much of Donnelly's cultural evidence for the existence of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. Nonetheless, such is the power of the written word that books on Atlantis published in the 196os and 197os still base much of their case on the "authority" of Donnelly,' often ignoring the fact that the Evolutionist approach to human development undermines the very foundation of Donnelly's Diffusionist superstructure. Rather than refute Donnelly point by point, a task well beyond the limits of this study, it would be better to provide some examples of the Donnelly approach which will demonstrate the inherent weakness of his method. To begin, we must first of all realize that the origins of the various Amerind peoples of the New World were not well understood in the last century. Donnelly, rejecting the hypothesis that these peoples arrived in the Americas from Asia by way of the Bering Strait, put their origin in Atlantis on the evidence of certain common cultural traits which the Amerinds supposedly shared with Old World peoples. Since it seemed obvious to Donnelly that the Amerinds could have had no direct contact with the Egyptians as long as a wide ocean lay between them, the only possible explanation of shared cultural traits was the former existence of Atlantis in the

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Atlantic to serve as the point of diffusion. Thus Donnelly came to believe that various cultures in both the Old and the New Worlds could only be understood as colonies of the motherland, Atlantis. Donnelly proceeded to list the various cultural traits basic to his thesis. One of the more significant of these traits was the practice of mummification, which, as is well known, was common to both the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Peruvians. Without an Atlantis, Donnelly was at a loss to account for this practice among such widely dispersed peoples. Donnelly, however, appeared not to be concerned by the fact that these two cultures practised mummification differently: the Egyptians, for example, laid out their dead in a prone position, removed the internal organs, and wrapped the remains, which were then placed in a sarcophagus; the ancient Peruvians, however, trussed their corpses up into a crouching position, with knees tucked under the chin, and compactly wrapped the entire body, viscera and all, in thick burial bundles.' Moreover, the New World peoples practising mummification did so many hundreds of years after the ancient Egyptians. It now seems certain that these two cultures, each inhabiting extremely dry areas of the earth, independently developed the art of mummification, a conclusion that would have been inconceivable to the Diffusionist Donnelly. Donnelly's attitude towards pyramids was quite similar. As he noted, there are indeed structures of pyramidal shape both in Egypt and in Central America. From this fact Donnelly concluded that "in Atlantis, the habitation of the gods, we find the original model of all those pyramids which extend from India to Peru."5 It should be noted that other authorities, making similar leaps of faith, cite the existence of pyramids to "prove" the presence of ancient astronauts on earth." What ought not to be ignored, however, is that the pyramids of the Old and New Worlds are quite disparate in time, in function, and even in their very pyramidal shape. A close look at the American pyramids shows them to be stepped structures, built in clearly defined stages, quite unlike the smoothly faced pyramids of Egypt. The American pyramids, moreover, were designed to serve as platforms for the temples which crowned their final stage; in other words, they were places of worship, rather than places of burial like the pyramids of Egypt. Finally, the Egyptian and American pyramids were built hundreds of years apart, a time lag hard to explain if both cultures derived from an Atlantis. Anthropologists now know that the Mayas, the prime pyramid builders of the Americas, naturally hit upon the concept of such an ascending structure: in their desire to build proper temples to please their gods, the Mayas had to make their

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places of worship stand out above the surrounding clutter of the Central American jungle; placing a temple on a pyramid was the obvious way of making it visible to the gods.? That the Egyptians had earlier in history employed a similar, though not identical, shape to serve as burial places tells us nothing about Atlantis, but a great deal about human ingenuity. In similar fashion the fact that the art of painting was known on both sides of the Atlantic tells us nothing about an Atlantis; nor does the fact that the ancient Peruvians worshipped the same sun in A.D. t 30o that the Egyptians had worshipped in 1300 B.c. Nor can we draw Atlantean conclusions from the fact that the Incas of Peru used in their architecture huge stone blocks that are vaguely reminiscent of the cyclopean blocks of Mycenaean Greece: both Peru and Greece, after all, are extremely mountainous and thus provide their inhabitants with plentiful materials for stone construction. Nor do Donnelly's linguistic acrobatics clarify the picture: to argue that the Greek "Olympus" is a corruption of "Atlantis" almost boggles the mind; to claim that the Aztec legendary city of Aztlan must be Atlantis defies the Aztecs' own belief that Aztlan was in northwestern Mexico.8 Thus it is simply not true that "research has made it abundantly clear that the civilization of Egypt and America sprang from one common source."° So flawed was Donnelly's thesis that even one of his most faithful disciples felt compelled to do some patching. In the 1g2os Lewis Spence attempted to remove one of the more serious stumbling blocks in Donnelly's work, namely, the chronological discrepancy between the cultures of the Old and New Worlds. Doing the greatest violence to Plato's account of Atlantis, Spence argued that the Atlantic continent-island had not disappeared all at once, but rather it had disintegrated very slowly, eventually breaking up into two main land areas: Atlantis and Antilia. Antilia had succumbed to the waves much later than Atlantis, and thus the Amerind peoples had arrived in the Americas from Antilia at a relatively late date.10 Having rearranged the legend in this way, Spence then went on to echo Donnelly in tracing the "culture complex" of Atlantis in both the Old and New Worlds. Like his mentor, Spence concludes that "it must be clear, then, to anyone of disciplined imagination, if not to the pedant, that from some such centre as Atlantis the seeds of civilization were spread" over the world." Underlying this entire approach to the problem of Atlantis is something that can only be termed a denial of human potential. There was, for example, an obvious reluctance to see the achievements of Amerind civilization as internally produced; it seemed much more

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feasible to postulate the external causation of an Atlantis. One reason for this attitude was simple ignorance: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relatively little was known about the formative stages of Amerind civilization. Spence's The Problem of Atlantis (1924) illustrates this lack of knowledge; again and again Spence refers to Amerind cultures as suddenly appearing "full-blown," with no roots in American soil: "No American civilization greatly antedated too B.c., that is so far as its appearance on American soil is concerned";12 "Toltec and Maya civilization did not originate on American soil";1Ø "We find not a single trace of its [that is, the Mayan] evolution or development upon American ground."14 Were this indeed true, there would be no surprise at Spence's postulating an Atlantean origin for these cultures; to be sure, the sudden appearance of a full-blown culture on virgin soil, with no earlier stages of evolution visible, would naturally lead one to believe that a colony of some sort had arrived from elsewhere. In the case of the Amerind civilizations, however, recent anthropological and archaeological research has amply demonstrated their ancient roots in American soil, and no modern scholar would consider Spence's statement that "no American civilization greatly antedated too B.c." as even remotely accurate. Mayan roots have now been traced back to almost 2000 B.C.,1b and the evolution of Peruvian cultures in South America is now well documented.16 Modern research has in fact upheld the belief that the Amerind peoples crossed via the Bering Strait to the Americas thousands of years ago, coming from Asia and not from Atlantis. Yet it should be borne in mind that, even if our present knowledge of the gradual evolution of Amerind cultures on American soil had not grown so much since the turn of the century, there would still be no necessity to invoke, as Donnelly and Spence did, an external Atlantean origin : simply because one does not know the precise roots of a culture does not mean that those roots do not exist; even when Europe was totally ignorant of the existence of the Americas, the Americas did of course exist! Just so the American roots of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas are there for those who seek them.17 Finally there is one other serious flaw in the methodology of Donnelly and his followers: as L. Sprague de Camp has written, "Those who argue that the Mayas must have obtained their culture from elsewhere ... cite resemblances between the Mayan civilization and those of the Old World. Such arguments, however, concentrate upon likenesses and ignore differences, which are so profound as to make the resemblances look petty and accidental."18 Indeed, were one to examine the entire culture of the Mayas, or any other Amerind civilization, numerous features would stand out as having nothing in com-

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mon with the civilizations of the Old World. Donnelly ignored such unique features, preferring to focus upon a few individual trees, while closing his eyes to the total forest. Thus, for example, the facts that the Amerind civilizations had few metal tools, no beasts of burden except the llama in Peru (and Peru had no writing), and no wheeled vehicles should alert us to the "separateness" of their cultures from those of the Old World. Especially in the case of the wheel, we would expect such a useful item to have been brought to the New World from any hypothetical homeland in Atlantis. Another argument for separate evolution is provided by the tragic susceptibility of the Amerind peoples to the European diseases of smallpox, measles, and malaria; these afflictions had not been known in the Americas before contact with Europeans, and so they took a fearful toll on the vulnerable natives. Were the Amerinds of a common origin with the Europeans, they ought to have been exposed to the same diseases and so developed the same tolerance. Similarly, the well-known fact that many different plants were native to the Old and New Worlds also argues for a separate evolution of a lengthy duration. In the final analysis, then, those arguments in behalf of the existence of Atlantis in the Atlantic which are based on common cultural traits are of little force. As we have seen, the alleged common traits tend to resemble each other vaguely at best, and much that is unique to a culture is conveniently ignored. Moreover, as de Camp has stated, "You cannot ... prove whether or not sunken continents ever existed by comparing the cultures of different peoples, because to do so you would have to make the same assumptions as those of the diffusionists about culture-complexes, the scarcity of invention, and so on."19 It is now time, in the area of research on Atlantis, to dispense once and for all with arguments from common cultural traits; it is also time to recognize that the Atlantis of Donnelly and Spence, the homeland of all civilization, is based, not on the authority of Plato, our primary source, but on Donnelly's own fertile imagination. In the end the case for the existence of an Atlantic continent-island must be based on physical, not cultural, evidence. THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

Although devoting most of his attention to common cultural traits in the Old and New Worlds, Donnelly was aware of the desirability of providing a firm physical basis for his hypothetical Atlantic island. The "evidence" available to him, however, was so skimpy that two brief chapters, entitled "The Testimony of the Sea" and "The Testimony of the Flora and Fauna," sufficed to contain it all. The science

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of 1882, as reflected in those chapters, appears primitive today: witness Donnelly's statement on Atlantis as the "great continent which once filled the whole bed of the present Atlantic Ocean, and from whose debris geology tells us the Old and New Worlds were constructed."20 As we shall see, modern geology affirms no such thing; yet recent books on Atlantis still insist on repeating such out-of-date "science."21 Indeed, it can be said that few new arguments from the physical sciences favourable to the Donnelly-Spence thesis have been added to the Atlantis debate since their time. Not many years before Donnelly's book was written, the infant science of oceanography had made an unexpected discovery in the Atlantic Ocean. This discovery was characterized by Donnelly as follows: Suppose we were to find in mid-Atlantic, in front of the Mediterranean, in the neighborhood of the Azores, the remains of an immense island, sunk beneath the sea ... and suppose we found that the Azores were the mountain peaks of this drowned island ... would we not be obliged to confess that these facts furnished strong corroborative proofs of the truth of Plato's statement.22 What Donnelly was referring to is the massive ridge that runs the length of the mid-Atlantic: a rugged, volcanic submarine mountain range of which the Azores are an above-water part. The discovery of this mid-Atlantic ridge was quite understandably seized upon by Donnelly and other Atlantists as the ultimate physical proof of the lost island's former existence. Deep-sea soundings had shown that some of these submarine mounts were as much as 2,700 metres tall and were at an average depth of 1.6 kilometres below the surface; how else to explain the existence of such a feature in the ocean except by the sinking of the mountainous Atlantis? In addition, the fact that the ridge was covered with volcanic deposits seemed to tie in with Atlantis' sudden catastrophic destruction. No wonder, then, that Spence could confidently assert that the islands, such as the Azores, connected with the ridge "are obviously the mountainpeaks of this sunken continent."28 That the Azores were the last remnants of Atlantis quickly became established dogma. There was, however, a problem with the identification of the midAtlantic ridge with Atlantis. As Donnelly realized, the rediscovered "Atlantis" was not wide enough to serve as an effective link between the Old and New Worlds; since Donnelly was thoroughly convinced that Atlantis had been such a link, he asserted that there had once

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been "connecting ridges" that joined Atlantis to both Africa and the Americas: "in these `connecting ridges' we see the pathway which once extended between the New World and the Old, and by means of which the plants and animals of one continent travelled to the other."24 From that time on the concept of the connecting "land bridge" also became part of Atlantean dogma. As investigations of the Atlantic and its ridge progressed, other evidence that seemed to support Donnelly's thesis came to light: for example, a type of lava called tachylyte was dredged up from the depths around the ridge; this particular kind of lava was thought to form only under normal atmospheric pressure and not under water." Therefore it was believed that the ridge itself must once have stood high and dry, that is, as Atlantis. Later investigations of the American continental shelves also revealed surprising submarine features: large rivers of the continent, such as the Hudson, had cut deep canyons into the shelf, indicating that the shelf had formerly been dry land. In addition some investigators saw anomalies in the area of the Sargasso Sea that might be traced back to a sunken landmass in that area. There were also archaeological finds of what appeared to be megalithic structures in the waters around Bimini. Finally, there were clearly identifiable links discovered between the flora and fauna of the Old and New Worlds that seemed to necessitate former land connections. All such evidence, as it accumulated, seemed to be building a strong case for the existence of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. Recent advances in science, however, have shown these "proofs" of Atlantis to be less than convincing, and the tachylyte lava provides a good case in point. As recorded by Spence in 1924 (and repeated more recently by Berlitz in 2969 ) ,26 a ship laying cable north of the Azores in 1898 dredged up a fragment of this vitreous type of lava; a geologist of the day who examined the lava declared that it had to have been formed above the water, since underwater solidification would have given it a crystalline, rather than vitreous, nature. Accordingly, since the lava was formed above the water, the ridge on which it was found must have been dry land at one time. As time passed and science progressed, the significance of this piece of tachylyte came to be questioned more and more. Some critics argued that the lava could well be intrusive to the find-site, perhaps having been ice-rafted to the ridge; or it might have been formed in an explosion of a submarine volcano whose peak once stood temporarily above the waters. These criticisms nonetheless did not prevail, and the piece of tachylyte continued to be regarded as physical evidence of Atlantis. Modern geology, however, has now shown that

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"neither pressure nor the presence of air is the critical factor in the hardening of lava; instead, it is the rate of cooling, ... both laboratory experiments and observations of underwater lava flows indicate that tachylyte forms quite as readily under water as elsewhere."27 Thus, the presence of tachylyte on the mid-Atlantic ridge cannot be considered as proof of a sunken landmass. Likewise, modern oceanography sees in the river-cut canyons of the continental shelves proof, not of an Atlantis, but rather of periodic changes in sea level over the ages. The continental shelves are in fact the true edges of the continents to which they are attached; on the average they are 64 kilometres wide and are covered by 122 metres of water. In contrast the continental slopes which terminate the shelves abruptly descend thousands of metres into the depths of the ocean.28 Thus the shelves form a shallow plateau, vulnerable to changes in sea level. It is now known that during ice ages the amount of water stored in the ocean basins is decreased by the growth of glaciers, and, as a result, more of the continental shelves are above sea level. At such times the rivers of the continent continue to flow over the now-exposed shelves, often creating large canyons; when an ice age ends and the water level of the oceans rises, the shelves once again begin to submerge, canyons and all. Therefore the existence of a deep river-cut canyon on the shelf has nothing to do with Atlantis, and the Hudson River canyon cannot be seen as an old river bed of Atlantis, now submerged. Even while recognizing this origin for the canyons of the continental shelves, some authorities attempt to connect them to Atlantis. According to Berlitz,20 for example, Atlantis might have been inundated by a worldwide flood that overwhelmed continental areas at the end of the last ice age. The problem with this hypothesis is that geologists believe that the release of waters by the melting glaciers caused a very gradual rise in sea level, not a sudden catastrophic, worldwide deluge.80 The picture given by Plato of Atlantis' end, however, indicates a very sudden catastrophe connected with earthquakes. Moreover, given Plato's description of Atlantis as a very mountainous island, it seems unlikely that it would have been totally submerged by the estimated 130-metre rise in sea level at the end of the last ice age. Indeed, any rise in sea level mighty enough to cover Atlantis would have overwhelmed other continents, including the Americas, at the same time. In regard to the Sargasso Sea, the unusual amount of seaweed floating in that area off the coast of Florida has led some Atlantists to claim that a sunken part of the lost island lies just below the surface.$' In addition, the recent discovery of underwater structures

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in the area, most notably around Bimini, has reinforced this belief, making the area one of great concern to Atlantists in the past few years. That this general area has been connected with the well-publicized "mysteries" of the Bermuda Triangle has also not decreased its attraction. The Sargasso Sea, however, is not as shallow as Atlantists would have us believe: its depth on the average is 5,00o metres, and no continental mass lies concealed beneath its surface. Moreover, its unusual concentration of seaweed is due, not to a sunken landmass, but to the fact that this is a relatively calm area of the Atlantic to which ocean currents bring, and deposit, large amounts of seaweed. The calm waters of the sea thus provide a kind of natural pen for this floating material. The underwater structures recently found in this area, moreover, may be either of relatively recent or natural origin. For example, a roughly rectangular structure usually identified as a temple is thought by many scientists to be a rough-hewn enclosure constructed in the recent past for the storage of sponges. More controversy surrounds the so-called Bimini Road, a J-shaped causeway some five metres under the waters off Bimini. While some scientists claim that the road is a natural structure (based on numerous core samples taken), others are convinced that the structure is man made.8'' Even if we assume a man-made construction, there is no evidence yet to connect the structure with an Atlantis: it could easily be a megalithic causeway or wall erected by early inhabitants of the island. Like the many questions raised by the Bermuda Triangle itself, the mysteries of the Bimini find need further investigation before one can postulate any Atlantean connection; it does no good in reality to "solve" one mystery by referring to another. The argument for an Atlantic Atlantis based on common flora and fauna between the Old and New Worlds was first formulated by Donnelly, who realized that many plants and animals would have needed land bridges of some sort to spread from one continent to another. For example, scientists had discovered that identical forms of earthworms were found in North Africa, Europe, and some Atlantic islands; that the horse had originally existed in America; that types of camels were common to India, Africa, and South America. Donnelly and Spence could find no way to account for the similarity of such animal life except by an Atlantean land bridge that once stretched from the Old World to the New, allowing easy movement between continents. A parallel situation seemed to exist in regard to plant life: many species were found to be common to both the Old and the New

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Worlds. Donnelly concluded that "it would seem to be impossible that ... trees could have migrated from Switzerland to America unless there was unbroken land communication between the two continents."33 In this particular conclusion Donnelly was in fact correct. In the ensuing debate about plants and Atlantis, a great deal of attention was focused upon corn. It was claimed that, while corn was long cultivated in the Americas, no wild state of the plant was known; therefore corn must have been domesticated from its original state elsewhere, namely, Atlantis.34 Recently this particular myth has been exploded: in Mexico the remains of wild corn, dating to about 5000 B.C., have been found by R. S. MacNeish of the National Museum of Canada. It is now believed that this wild corn was domesticated in America around 34.00 B.c.35 The debate about corn points out a fact that is too often passed over in silence, namely, that, while there are indeed plants and animals common to both Old and New Worlds, there are at the same time plants and animals which are not common to both. There are, for example, no apes native to the Americas, and there was no corn in the Old World. As de Camp has written, "It is incredible that if Atlanteans had colonized both Mexico and Egypt, they should have taken wheat only to Egypt and maize only to Mexico."38 We are left with the fact that some data support land connections between the Old and New Worlds, while other data apparently indicate a separate evolution of plant and animal life. Is it possible to provide any explanation? Certainly one possible solution is provided by the existence of the Bering Strait between Asia and America. If a land bridge is needed to explain common flora and fauna, then the bridge provided by the Bering Strait will serve as nicely as one provided by a hypothetical Atlantis. It is generally agreed that, during the recurrent ice ages, the sea level was lowered enough to turn the Bering Strait into a land connection between Asia and America; at such times not only the Amerinds but also plants and animals could cross from continent to continent. When the ice retreated and the sea level began to rise, the bridge would revert to being a strait once more, and immigration would gradually come to a halt. In this way the two continents would periodically be connected, allowing for interchange of flora and fauna, and would periodically be quite separate, allowing for a certain amount of unique development. Yet, if the Bering Strait can answer some of the questions posed by Atlantists, there is still another explanation at hand for similarities in flora and fauna between continents and for the existence of the mid-Atlantic ridge.

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THE EVIDENCE FROM PLATE TECTONICS

In the last twenty years a revolution has taken place in the earth sciences. A concept which was considered heretical in the 195os has now gained the support of most geologists over the world. A new understanding of how our planet "works" has been achieved, and the new knowledge attained bodes ill for all those who search for Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean, for the theory of plate tectonics has explained the very genesis of the Atlantic Ocean in a way that makes any lost continent within its bounds improbable. Plate tectonics finds its origin in the theory of continental drift first proposed (independently) by A. L. Wegener and F. B. Taylor in the early part of the twentieth century. Wegener was especially dedicated to proving that the continents were not fixed in place, but were moving over the face of the earth. His Origin of Continents and Oceans, first published in 1915, set out the theory in detail. While his initial inspiration for the concept of continental drift came from the interlocking shapes of the present continents (for example, South America and Africa could be joined easily, with the east coast of the former fitting neatly into the west coast of the latter), Wegener also based his work firmly on geological and biological principles. Recognizing that certain geological features as well as plants and animals seemed to cross continental boundaries, Wegener became convinced that the continents had once been joined in some way; however, he rejected the Donnellian concept of former land bridges across the oceans which were now sunk beneath the waters. Basing his belief on the principle of isostasy, which maintains that the continents, being underlain by a light granitic crust, tend to float upon a substratum of denser basaltic material, Wegener denied that land bridges could ever have existed : as A. Hallam has written, in summarizing Wegener's views, If the floors of the oceans were paved with vast sunken bridges composed of the same thickness of light crustal material as the continental areas that lie above sea level, then gravity measurements made at sea should reveal that fact. The gravity measurements indicate the exact opposite: the underlying rock of the ocean floor is much denser than the crustal material of the continents.... If the low-density crustal rocks of the vanished bridges had indeed been somehow forced downward into the denser sea bottom, the bridges would tend to rise again... . Unless one chose to dismiss the fossil evidence out of hand, Wegener concluded, the only feasible means of explaining intercontinental plant and animal resemblances was by the drifting of the continents themselves.Ø7

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Thus, the light material composing any land bridge would have to be less dense than the material of the sea floor; in this case land bridges simply could not sink into the sea floor. Modem geology upholds this principle, and, as J. Tuzo Wilson has stated, Many suggestions have been made as to how to create and destroy the land bridges needed to explain the biological evidence without moving the continents. Some involve isthmuses and some involve whole continents that have subsided below the surface of the ocean. But the chemistry and density of continents and ocean floors are now known to be so different that it seems even more difficult today to raise and lower ocean floors than it is to cause continents to migrate88 In sum, Donnelly's postulated land bridge—Atlantis complex could not disappear without a trace, and so far no trace of his Iand bridges has been found. In place of such land bridges, Wegener postulated that the present continents had once been joined into a super-landmass called Pangaea. As long as that supercontinent existed, plant and animal life could circulate freely; once Pangaea, however, began to break up, the continents, with their attendant plant and animal life, gradually became isolated from each other. In Wegener's view the drifting of the continents provided reasonable solutions to all the problems of similar plant and animal life so long noted by naturalists. His thesis, however, was not immediately accepted because scientists of the day could not visualize a mechanism by which a continental mass could "drift" over the sea floor. In the past decade Wegener's thesis has been successfully refined into a broader concept called plate tectonics. Geologists now believe that the continents are fixed upon larger plates which move relative to each other: "the whole surface of the earth, including both continents and ocean basins, has been broken into a few huge plates that are in motion relative to one another. These plates are larger than continents and carry them about like moving sheets of ice transporting rafts of logs frozen into their surface."38 There are twelve such plates, some of them quite large (such as the African plate and the Eurasian plate), and others relatively small (such as the Caribbean plate). Their relative rate of motion with respect to each other is approximately one to two centimetres ayear.40 As Wegener had earlier asserted, it now seems clear that 200 million years ago all continental masses were united into one supercontinent; at that time there was no Atlantic Ocean, as the Americas, Europe, and Africa were all contiguous. In the Mesozoic era, how-

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4. Pangaea, after R. S. Dietz and J. C. Holden ever, a rift appeared, and North America and Eurasia broke away from South America and Africa; the former two then formed the continental mass of Laurasia, while the latter two composed Gondwanaland. Some 120 million years ago Gondwanaland separated into South America and Africa. Then about 8o million years ago the North Atlantic began to open. Gradually the world as we know it today began to take shape. Vital to the continued drift of the continents on their plates is what is now termed sea-floor spreading, and it is in this regard that the mid-Atlantic ridge so basic to Donnelly's thesis has been the object

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of intensive scientific examination. The plates upon which the continents are rafted are bordered by ridges and trenches. Where plates move towards each other and come into conflict, oceanic crust is subducted into deep trenches which return it to the interior of the earth; where plates are moving apart, on the other hand, new oceanic crust is generated along the ridges.41 The mid-Atlantic ridge is no isolated phenomenon but is part of a worldwide system of oceanic ridges, some 65,000 kilometres in length. Since new crustal material is created at these ridges as the plates pull apart, the ocean floor is "spreading" all the time; clear-cut proof that this process is taking place has been provided by magnetic studies of the ocean floor. Thus, we presently have much more knowledge about the midAtlantic ridge than was available in Donnelly's day. It is now apparent that this ridge and others "are elevated more than three kilometers above the average level of the ocean floor because the newly extruded rock is hot and hence more buoyant than the colder rock in the older lithosphere."42 In other words, far from being mountains which have sunk down to the ocean floor (as Donnelly would argue), the mountains of the ridge are being built up from the ocean floor. Indeed, parts of the mid-Atlantic ridge are presently being raised into the above-water islands of the Azores, Iceland, and Tristan da Cunha; the volume of the material ejected by the ridge at these places "greatly exceeds the norm for mid-ocean ridges; that is why they have been built up into islands while the rest of the ridge crest has remained submerged."48 The Azores, then, do not represent the sunken mountain peaks of Atlantis. The best way of coming to an understanding of the true nature of the mid-Atlantic ridge is by direct observation, and man's first direct observation of the ridge has now been completed by a team of French and American scientists. In 1971 Project FAMOUS (FrenchAmerican Mid-Ocean Undersea Study) was undertaken: designed to last several years, this project used submersible vessels to conduct a thorough examination of the ridge southwest of the Azores, in the traditional area of Atlantis itself. Before its termination Project FAMOUS had completed twenty-five surface cruises of the area, two aeromagnetic surveys, and, most importantly, forty-seven submarine explorations of the ridge. The scientists confirmed what geologists had long suspected, namely, that the mid-oceanic ridges do indeed mark the edges of the plates which make up the face of the earth; that new crust is being created at these ridges; and that the midAtlantic ridge "is actually a system of parallel ridges centered on a continuous rift in the ocean floor" and is "nothing less than a vast unhealed volcanic wound."44

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In reviewing the data gained by Project FAMOUS, members of the team remarked that "it was hard to realize that barely a dozen years earlier serious students of abyssal geology could still speculate that elevated portions of the mid-ocean-ridge system, such as the East Pacific Rise and the Azores Plateau, were remnants of sunken continental land areas.i46 To the scientists of Project FAMOUS, then, the existence of an Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean is impossible because of the nature of the genesis of that ocean. Moreover, were one to examine the recent computer-generated maps of Pangaea, one would see at once that there simply was no room for an island off Spain the size of Plato's Atlantis.48 In conclusion, the evidence supplied in recent years by geology does not encourage belief in an Atlantic Atlantis as described by Plato. The traditional evidence brought forward in behalf of Plato's location (the mid-Atlantic ridge, common flora and fauna) has now been made obsolete by the concept of plate tectonics.47

6

Alternative Sites for Atlantis Once the traditional location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean falls into question, the gates are open for relocation of the lost island anywhere in the world. Indeed, despite the assertions of the "Atlantic Atlantists," researchers in the past have put forward numerous, and conflicting, claims to have found Atlantis in places as far apart as Britain and Antarctica.' As the evidence from the geological sciences increasingly denies an Atlantic location, it is only to be expected that other sites will be examined more intensely. Yet any alternative site for Atlantis must meet the same requirements imposed on the Atlantic location: there must be geological evidence that a large landmass sank in a sudden catastrophe approximately ten thousand years ago. Otherwise researchers must be prepared to admit that Plato was incorrect in his basic facts about the lost island, an admission few are willing to make, since it would undermine their claim for total historical accuracy on the part of the Greek philosopher. ATLANTIS IN AFRICA

Africa, especially North Africa, has long been a happy hunting ground for Atlantists. Basically two reasons account for its prominence: first, the physical presence of the Atlas Mountains, a range which extends for approximately 2,40o kilometres through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; second, some ancient texts exist which seem to connect North Africa with a people called Atlantes. Both reasons obviously dwell upon similarities in name: Atlas, Atlantes, and Atlantis. Moreover, most of Morocco stands outside the Straits of Gibraltar. Unfortunately, however, the thesis of Atlantis in North Africa has had to dispense almost entirely with the concept of a large sunken

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island; instead, we are told that Atlantis is still high and dry, perhaps just buried under oceans of sand .2 The ancient texts usually cited by African Atlantists are those of Herodotus, Hanno, Skylax, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny the Elder. Herodotus, in his fourth book of the Persian Wars, wrote of two peoples whose names sound as though they could be connected with Atlantis: At the distance of ten days' journey from the Garamantians there is again another salt-hill and spring of water; around which dwell a people, called the Atarantians, who alone of all known nations are destitute of names. The title of Atarantians is borne by the whole race in common, but the men have no particular names of their own. The Atarantians, when the sun rises high in the heaven, curse him, and load him with reproaches, because (they say) he burns and wastes both their country and themselves. Once more at the distance of ten days' journey there is a salt-hill, a spring, and an inhabited tract. Near the salt is a mountain called Atlas, very taper and round; so lofty, moreover, that the top (it is said) cannot be seen, the clouds never quitting it either summer or winter. The natives call this mountain the Pillar of Heaven, and they themselves take their name from it, being called Atlantes. They are reported not to eat any living thing, and never to have any dreams.3 While the names are reminiscent of Atlantis, it should be noted that neither race is connected by Herodotus with either an island or a sudden catastrophe; indeed Herodotus implies that both the Atarantians and the Atlantes were alive and well in his own day (fifth century B.c.) . In addition, the statements that the Atarantians bore no personal names and that the Atlantes ate no meat and had no dreams do not accord with the data provided by Plato in the Timaeus and the Critias. Finally, given the fact that Plato knew the work of Herodotus, one is led to wonder if perhaps the philosopher was inspired to call his island Atlantis by this passage. The next ancient source, Hanno, was a Carthaginian sailor who made a voyage along the West African coast sometime around 500 B.C. In his report of this adventure, extant in a Greek translation, Hanno announced that he had found a small island (five stades in circumference) many days' sail beyond the pillars of Heracles. This island, named Cerne by Hanno, has been seized upon by Atlantists as an extant portion of the lost Atlantean realm, especially since another ancient geographer, usually referred to as Skylax, stated that the stretches of sea beyond Cerne were not navigable because of

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shallow water and too much mud and seaweed. Skylax, a contemporary of Plato, is thought to have gained this information from earlier Carthaginian sources, who most likely tried to discourage Greek trade competition outside the Straits of Gibraltar by spreading rumours about the impassability of the sea there.' Another ancient source vital to the thesis of an African Atlantis is Diodorus Siculus, the famous historian of the first century B.C. In his third book, Diodorus describes the Amazon women who allegedly lived in western Libya; at one point in their history these Amazons embarked upon a plan of conquest, advancing first of all upon a people known as the Atlantioi. One of the cities of the Atlantioi was Cerne, which the Amazons easily captured. A period of assimilation between the two peoples followed (3.53-54). Finally, the Roman historian Pliny ( first century A.D.) seems to echo portions of earlier authorities in his Natural History. In his treatment of the elusive Cerne, for example, he quotes two previous historians who had placed the island in different parts of Africa (6.36) ; in the same passage Pliny echoes Plato in stating that "it is said that there is another island situated opposite Mount Atlas, known as Atlantis," and his language leads us to believe that this particular Atlantis was still in existence; finally, in another passage, Pliny records the existence of a people called the Atlantes in the middle of the desert: these people, Pliny asserts, do not have names, curse the sun, and never dream (5.8) . This last passage is quite clearly a conflated account of the Atarantians and the Atlantes of Herodotus. Selecting appropriate material from these sources, modern Atlantists have generated much speculation about an African Atlantis. The most influential theory is associated with Felix Berlioux, a nineteenth-century French geographer. Berlioux saw in Cerne the main city of an Atlantean empire; this Cern, however, was not an island, but an inland site on the west coast of Morocco, near the modern Agadir. According to Berlioux, this Atlantis ruled a huge empire in North Africa until the might of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Berbers brought it to defeat in the thirteenth century B.c.5 It should be obvious that Berlioux' Atlantis has little in common with Plato's lost island; moreover, there is no extant evidence for any such empire based at this site in any historical period. Somewhat more substantial is the long-standing theory that the real Atlantis was in Tunisia. As proposed by Paul Borchardt in 1925, this theory claimed that Atlantis was, in the words of L. Sprague de Camp, " in the region of the shotts or salt-marshes that stretch westward from the Gulf of Qabes which the ancients called the Little Syrtis. The biggest of these dismal swamps, the Shott el Jerid, was probably the ancient Lake Tritonis where Diodorus located his Ama-

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zons.... This body of water, said Borchardt, was the original Atlantic Sea."e Borchardt even came across ancient remains in the area near Qabcs in apparent confirmation of his theory; it now seems, however, that what he discovered were the ruins of a Roman fort.' Nonetheless, contemporaries of Borchardt went on to refine the Tunisian hypothesis, suggesting, for example, that Plato's dates were incorrect, since this "Atlantis" fell in 1300 B.C. They even corrected Plato's dimensions for Atlantis so that the entire island would have been the size of Tunisia. It was also claimed that the actual ruins of Atlantis were to be found at the bottom of the Gulf of Qabcs, which had once been dry land; apparently an earthquake had lowered the gulf to its present position. That the Tunisian school is still strong today is indicated by a news release dated August 26, 1977, the first line of which reads, "Atlantis, the lost continent, did not sink beneath the waves but still exists as northern Tunisia and the northeastern part of Algeria." The ensuing article relates that Dr. Robert Schmalz of Pennsylvania State University has concluded that the Tunisian-Algerian location "most closely matches Plato's depiction" of Atlantis: "There, Schmalz said, the sea level has risen at least 30o feet as Pleistocene ice melted, flooding large areas of the adjoining land. At the same time, portions of the continents bordering the Mediterranean have been raised or lowered."8 The violence done to Plato's account in this interpretation is obvious : there is no island and no sudden catastrophe, since the waters of the Mediterranean rose very gradually at the end of the ice age. Indeed, using the logic of Dr. Schmalz, one could place Atlantis anywhere, since the rising of the waters as the glaciers melted was universal, and numerous coastal regions on earth must have been flooded. Perhaps Dr. Schmalz should keep in mind his own statement that "any speculation about Atlantis must correlate closely with Plato's description." Finally, a curious variation on the Tunisian hypothesis was put forward by Victor Berard in 192g.9 Berard claimed that the ruins of ancient Carthage were reminiscent of Atlantis: there was at Carthage, for example, a low, fortified hill, and the city itself was built on a peninsula serviced by docks and waterways. It must be remembered, however, that Carthage had been founded only in approximately 85o B.c., well after the supposed destruction of Atlantis; that Carthage still existed, the veritable ruler of the western Mediterranean, at the time of Plato; and that Carthage was finally sacked by the Romans in 146 B.C. That Plato was referring directly to Carthage as Atlantis thus seems most improbable. Some Atlantists, not convinced that North Africa was the true site of the lost land, decided to travel further south and place Atlantis

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deep in the Sahara Desert. The first man to look for Atlantis under the sands of the Sahara was apparently D. A. Godron in 1868. In 1925 Count Byron Khun de Prorok carried on the search,10 even claiming to have discovered a tomb in the Ahaggar Mountains supposedly belonging to the "Queen of Atlantis." Moreover, the presence of the allegedly enigmatic Tuareg peoples (Berber nomads of the Sahara) in the area of the Ahaggar Mountains led to their being seen as modern descendants of the lost Atlanteans.11 This theory received added impetus from the recent discovery of cave paintings in the Tassili Mountains. It has been claimed that these paintings, some ten thousand years old, portray the Sahara as quite fertile and well watered, unlike its present barren nature. Therefore it has been argued that there had been some drastic climatic change in North Africa, combined perhaps with some subsidence of coastal areas. Those scholars most closely connected with the Tassili paintings are hostile to this Atlantis-Sahara theory; Henri Lhote has put it bluntly: "The fact is that there is no possibility whatsoever of the Sahara having been the site of Plato's mysterious island."12 If any civilization, moreover, was lost to the sands of the Sahara, it was the result of a gradual change in climate, not a cataclysmic destruction of which there is not a single shred of evidence.12 Still further south is the final African resting-place for the lost Atlantis: Nigeria. In 1926 an explorer called Leo Frobenius, according to de Camp, "discovered things in Yorubaland (part of Nigeria) that convinced him he had found Atlantis, complete with elephants, luxuriant vegetation, blue-clad natives, and copper-ore. Frobenius equated the Nigerian god Olokon with Poseidon, and pointed out that the land had been the home of powerful maritime nations ever since the thirteenth century at least."14 Using the Donnellian method of tracing common cultural traits, Frobenius claimed to prove that Atlantis-Nigeria was an offshoot of an advanced civilization that had originated in the Pacific Ocean on another "lost continent." The problems in this thesis are manifest: no lost Atlantic island, but one in the Pacific instead; no destruction of Atlantis, since Nigeria obviously still exists; and, most significantly, modern convictions that this Yorubaland culture still flourished as late as A.D. I 000. Any connections with Plato and his Atlantis are thus far away, both in time and in space. ATLANTIS IN SPAIN

That the Iberian peninsula should receive a great deal of attention as a possible site for Atlantis is not at all surprising in view of the prominence of the Straits of Gibraltar and the pillars of Heracles in

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Plato's tale. Since Greek myth associated Heracles and his pillars with a place called Tartessos, it is also not surprising that Atlantists have expended much effort on trying to locate that particular site. Indeed, it has now become common to read in Atlantean literature that Tartessos was either a colony of the true Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean or, if the Atlantic location is rejected, Atlantis itself. In truth the Tartessos-Atlantis hypothesis has much more to recommend it than the rather unconvincing theories of Atlantis in Africa. Most of our present knowledge of Tartessos is based either on the writings of ancient Greeks or on the Old Testament. It would appear that the Greeks first came into contact with the settlement around 63o s.c.: according to Herodotus (4.152), a ship from Samos, trying to reach Egypt, was -blown off course and carried past the pillars of Heracles; by chance the vessel reached Tartessos, which was at the time just entering upon its fame as a trading town. In another passage (1.163), Herodotus tells of the voyages of the Phocaean Greeks to Tartessos, where King Arganthonius treated them very well. According to Strabo, a geographer of the first century A.D. who wrote an excursus on Spain, there was a river in the southwestern part of the country known as the Baetis; "the men of old called the Baetis River `Tartessos'.... Because the river had two mouths, a city was created on the intervening land, ... a city which was named `Tartessos' after the name of the river" (3.2.! t) . Although agreement is not unanimous, there is some evidence that these Greek authorities were referring to that city known as Tarshish in the Old Testament. Tarshish is perhaps most famous today as the original destination of Jonah : "Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish" (1:3) ; unfortunately, Jonah's voyage was interrupted by a whale. Tarshish also appears in the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. In Ezekiel 27:12 we read, "Tarshish trafficked with you [that is, Tyre] because of your great wealth of every kind; silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged for your wares"; at Jeremiah to :g we are told that "beaten silver is brought from Tarshish"; finally, at Isaiah 23 :1-12 Tarshish is mentioned in a prophecy about Tyre. In all these passages we receive a picture of Tarshish as a minerally rich centre of international trade. This agrees well with the Tartessos of the Greeks, but some biblical scholars nonetheless prefer to place Tarshish in Sardinia rather than in southwestern Spain.15 The Spanish Tartessos seems to have been located on an island near the mouth of the present-day Guadalquivir River (formerly the "Baetis" of Strabo), not far from the site of Cadiz. The origin

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of the settlement is still unclear, with credit at times being given to the Phoenicians, Minoans, or Etruscans, but it does seem to have been in existence by about I x oo B.C. The plentiful mineral resources of southern Spain soon turned Tartessos into a major trading centre of the ancient world. That the level of civilization reached by Tartessos and its neighbouring area was high is amply attested by Strabo, who records that the inhabitants of this part of Spain had an alphabet, historical records and poems, and laws alleged to be six thousand years old (3.1.6) . Seekers after Atlantis were increasingly fascinated by Tartessos, and in the 192os several German researchers focused their full attention on it. Although the actual site of the city had not been found, thus making archaeological investigation impossible, other evidence soon convinced Adolf Schulten, Otto Jessen, and Richard Hennig that Tartessos was indeed the lost Atlantis. Their arguments were mainly based on "reinterpreting" what Plato said; Jessen, for example, asserted that Plato's claim for Atlantis being "larger than Libya and Asia Minor" really referred to the huge trade monopoly controlled by Tartessos; that Atlantis' empire in the Mediterranean was actually Tartessos' supplying of metals to the Mediterranean nations; that the disappearance of Atlantis in a single day and night in fact referred to a conquest of Tartessos that supposedly left no traces to Greek seafarers.1e That Jessen was stretching things quite a bit in his attempt to correlate Atlantis and Tartessos is easily evident. Some evidence, however, stands on firmer ground. As Jessen noted, the fact that Tartessos was an island outside Gibraltar presents a good parallel with Atlantis. The rich mineral resources of Tartessos also remind one of Atlantis. The fact that a large plain backed by mountains stood behind Tartessos is likewise reminiscent of Atlantis. Thus, combining both good and bad evidence alike, Schulten, Jessen, and Hennig proclaimed Tartessos as Atlantis, and added, in a burst of patriotism, that Atlantis had been in fact a German colony! The main flaw in the Atlantis-Tartessos hypothesis remains one of chronology. The historical Tartessos is known to have flourished as a trading centre from approximately 1100 to 500 B.C. Solon, as we have seen, went to Egypt c. 56o s.c., when Tartessos still existed; it seems unlikely, as a result, that Solon or the Egyptians would have referred to Atlantis-Tartessos as having long ago vanished from the face of the earth. The Atlantean destruction of c. 956o B.C. is totally out of keeping with the facts known about Tartessos, whose destruction still lay in the future at the time of Solon. Moreover, the destruction of Tartessos was quite unlike that of

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Atlantis. Plato's island was submerged in a sudden catastrophe connected with earthquakes, whereas the catastrophe that befell Tartessos was slow and gradual. Because of her position at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, Tartessos was slowly transformed from an island into a peninsula as great amounts of silt were deposited in the bay. As this geological process continued over many years, a malarial marsh was built up which made life at Tartessos more and more difficult.17 It now seems likely that Tartessos experienced a slow death caused by this environmental change. Indeed, the reason why the site has still not been located today is that the silting process continues, and Tartessos is now thought to be covered by the mud of the Guadalquivir River. In the final analysis, the Atlantis-Tartessos hypothesis is not as convincing as it might at first glance seem. ATLANTIS IN NORTHERN EUROPE

A liberal interpretation of Plato's "in front of the straits which are called the pillars of Heracles" enables an Atlantist to search for the lost island-continent anywhere beyond the Mediterranean. Thus it has happened that parts of northern Europe have been included in what is by now almost a worldwide guessing game. Two neighbouring areas in particular have come into prominence as potential Atlantises: the Brittany area of northwestern France and the North Sea. The foremost proponent of Atlantis in the area of northwest France was, interestingly enough, a Frenchman: F. Gidon claimed in 1935 that the true source of the Atlantis myth recorded by Plato was a process of land subsidence in the area between Brittany and Ireland.18 According to his thesis, Brittany had once been joined to Ireland and at that time there had been no English Channel. In the European Bronze Age (c. 3000-1200 B.c.), however, the land began to subside, and the English Channel came into existence. As large areas of the former landmass were flooded, the inhabitants (identified as Celtic-Atlanteans) were forced to migrate all over continental Europe. Gidon concluded that "Plato's story is based upon a series of inundations like that of the Zuyder Zee, plus other elements such as rumours of Atlantic islands, and that Plato's Atlanto-Athenian war is but an echo of the migrations of the Kelts and Germans displaced by these floods.' Unhappily the evidence on which Gidon based much of his theory was botanical, and therefore a type of evidence which, as we have seen, is thrown into serious question by our new understanding of plate tectonics. It is true, as Gidon claimed, that the complex of land which is now Ireland-Britain-France was at one time high and dry as a single

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landmass which was part of the larger Eurasian plate. This state of affairs seems to have existed during the Pleistocene, when the world's sea level was lowered by the growth of glaciers. At that time, geologists believe, the entire North Sea was a low plain with rivers flowing through it. Where Gidon's thesis runs into difficulty today is in its chronology. Rather than place the formation of the English Channel in the Bronze Age, most geologists see this event as taking place thousands of years earlier; as A. G. Galanopoulos and E. Bacon have written, "Geological data show that the inundation of the north-west coast of France and the formation of the English Channel was caused by an overflow of the sea during the Holocene period following the end of the Ice Age. This overflow ... began about 7000 B.c. Its maximum was reached in 54.0o B.c."20 Thus, we are dealing here with a slow rise in sea level which climaxed long before the Bronze Age; any resemblance to Plato's Atlantis is difficult to discern, especially when one realizes that destructive earthquakes are quite rare in this area and that the mountains of Atlantis could hardly have been submerged by Z oo metres of water! All things considered, Gidon's theory must be adjudged to be quite unconvincing, although somewhat ingenious. Even more ingenious is the relatively recent theory that Atlantis was in the North Sea area near the island of Helgoland (Heligoland) . In 1953 a German pastor, Jürgen Spanuth, pioneered this new homeland for Atlantis on the basis of some submerged "ruins" eight metres under the surface about ten kilometres northeast of Helgoland, not far from the mouth of the Elbe River.21 Starting from this point, Spanuth proceeded to construct a complex picture not only of Atlantis, but also of a previously unimagined saga of the ancient German people. According to Spanuth, Atlantis controlled a vast empire in northern Europe from its capital city (the royal metropolis of Plato) on the island of Basileia, the source of his underwater ruins. Plato, however, was mistaken in the dates he assigned to Atlantis: Spanuth tries to show that Plato's "8,000 years ago" remark (sic; the text, of course, reads "g,000 years ago") really meant "8,000 months ago" or 667 years ago; placing Solon's visit to Egypt c. 568 B.c., Spanuth arrives at a date of c. 1235 B.c. for the existence of Atlantis-Basileia. The Atlanteans are thus transformed into Bronze Age Germans, and Spanuth finds additional justification for this interpretation by equating Plato's mysterious orichalkos (apparently a metal) with amber (which is not a metal). Spanuth even suggests that elephants were present in northern Europe in the Bronze Age, thus conforming to Plato's mention of elephants on Atlantis.

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In his reconstruction of the demise of Atlantis, Spanuth virtually rearranged both ancient history and Plato. Very much under the influence of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose Worlds in Collision had been published in 195o, Spanuth painted a picture of massive, worldwide catastrophes, all somehow linked to the fall of a comet (named Phaethon) into the Eider River, close to Atlantis-Basileia, sometime around r220 B.C. Phenomena associated with this event included great sea waves (which naturally overwhelmed Atlantis-Basileia and left only a remnant of Helgoland), floods, worldwide famine, global earthquakes and hurricanes, and abnormal volcanic activity. Indeed, with regard to the last phenomenon, Spanuth dated massive eruptions of Thera in the Aegean, Etna in Sicily, and Hekla in Iceland to this period. Nor were the effects of this catastrophe lost on Egypt : this was exactly the time of the Exodus and its accompanying natural curiosities.22 With the empire of Atlantis thus struck down, the Atlanteans (or, North Sea Folk) were forced to leave their homeland and travel south. Here Spanuth performs another spectacular transformation, as the displaced Nordvölker become the infamous "Peoples of the Sea," who are known to have caused problems in Egypt just before the rule of Rameses III (1200-1 168 s.c.). Rejecting the commonly held view that the Peoples of the Sea were inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, Spanuth "proves" their Germanic origin by a study of the ships, helmets, and shields associated with the Peoples of the Sea in the pictographs on the Temple of Amun at Medinet Habu (ancient Egyptian Thebes). A final transformation is then achieved as the new "Peoples of the (North) Sea" move into Palestine, where they become the biblical Philistines. Spanuth supports this reconstruction with an analysis of ancient myth which shows that memories of this worldwide disaster lived on into historical times. Myths which reflect these events include those of Phaethon (that is, the Comet, also known as Typhon) ; Deucalion ( that is, the flood) ; Talos ( that is, vulcanism) ; the Heraclides and the Hyperboreans (that is, the Atlanteans) ; and the Ragnarök of the German Edda. In the end, he has shown not only that the Helgoland area was Atlantis, but also that it was the legendary Phaeacia (Scheria) of Homer and the Hyperborea of Greek myth. In the scope of his imagination alone, Spanuth would deserve the honour of being called the German Ignatius Donnelly. The problems with Spanuth's reconstruction are manifold. His sequence of events, for example, is directly opposed to that given by Plato: according to Spanuth, the Atlantean invasion of the Mediterranean took place after the destruction of Atlantis. Moreover, his

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attempt to date a series of catastrophes to one period fails to be convincing. Thera, for example, is thought, on firm archaeological evidence, to have erupted at a time closer to I450 B.C. than 125o B.C. In the case of the pictographs at Medinet Habu, the "conclusive" evidence of Germanic-style helmets and shields associated with the Peoples of the Sea runs into difficulty because "these also appear in the hieroglyphs of the famous clay Phaistos disc'. Whatever may be the origins of this disc ... it was found in the Palace of Phaistos in Crete in a room containing Middle Minoan IIIB vases and a tablet in Linear A script,"23 and therefore dates to between the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C., some four hundred years before the Sea Peoples' attack on Egypt. Even more importantly, geological evidence serves to cast doubt upon Spanuth's thesis. Sunken land areas in the North Sea show no signs of having been sent suddenly to the bottom by a comet strike; there has been, instead, a gradual rise in sea level in the area, flooding parts of the continental mass between the British Isles and Scandinavia. It has been estimated that the Helgoland area of the North Sea has been subsiding at an average rate of five centimetres a century; indeed, over the past four thousand years the total "sinking" has been all of two metres.24 This is hardly enough to overwhelm an Atlantis, even one of the modest proportions of Spanuth's. As Galanopoulos has written, "The geological evidence leaves no doubt that the German Bay, in which Heligoland stands, has been formed as a result of coastal recession, subsidences and eustatic movement of sea level over many thousands of years."25 In brief, Spanuth's case is "not proven." Northern Europe as a site for Atlantis, however, cannot be abandoned without mention of a lesser-known theory that predated Spanuth's. If a Frenchman can argue for Atlantis in Brittany, and a German for Atlantis in Helgoland, it is not surprising that an Englishman once tried to place Atlantis in Great Britain : W. C. Beaumont in The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain (1946) went so far as to transfer Donnelly's "birthplace of all civilization" to Britain. In order to do this, however, Beaumont proposed that the ancestral Athens of Plato's tale must also have been in Britain, most likely in Scotland ! The pillars of Heracles were moved in turn to the English Channel. Beaumont then accounted for the destruction of Atlantis-Britain by a comet similar to that of Spanuth, although Beaumont dated his comet to 1322 B.C. As a result of the ensuing destruction, the British Atlanteans fled their land, travelled through Europe, and finally arrived in Egypt. There is so much here that is reminiscent

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of Spanuth that one ought to consider the possibility that Beaumont's book was one of Spanuth's major sources of inspiration. As for Beaumont himself, that prolific writer pursued his thesis further in a book entitled Britain: The Key to World History in 194.9. Lest too much attention be given to the Atlantis in Britain hypothesis, it should be noted that a recent book by Anthony Roberts, called Atlantean Traditions in Britain (1974), rejects the concept of Britain as Atlantis on the basis of the latest cosmic knowledge. Instead, Roberts argues that Britain and Ireland were simply colonies of the true Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. He reached this conclusion "from a psychological and psychic rapport with the immense cosmic forces that wash over and around this green planet."28 Indeed, Roberts totally rejects the "orthodox" scientific disciplines in favour of intuitive logic, mind-enhancing revelation, and cosmic imagination. ATLANTIS AT THE POLES

There existed in Greek myth a mysterious people, called the Hyperboreans, who were thought to inhabit a land of perpetual sunshine beyond Boreas, the North Wind. As mentioned earlier, Spanuth in his Atlantis-Helgoland thesis identified these Hyperboreans with his Germanic Atlanteans. Other Atlantists, rejecting Spanuth's identification, have seen in this northern people the true Atlanteans who lived on the islands of the Arctic.27 The first person to argue the case for Atlantis in the Arctic seems to have been an eighteenth-century French scientist, J. S. Bailly.28 He proposed that the heart of the Atlantean empire had been at Spitsbergen in the modern Svalbard Islands of Norway. At the time of Atlantis this region of the earth had been much warmer than it is now: Bailly asserted that the earth had not yet cooled down enough then to refrigerate the Arctic. As the earth cooled, however, the Atlanteans were forced to leave the Arctic; they travelled south and eventually, according to Bailly, settled in the Caucasus area. Modern science, of course, rejects this concept of the earth still being "hot" in the period of Atlantis. Yet there was evidence that strongly suggested a different climate for Spitsbergen in the past: buried trees were discovered at Spitsbergen which apparently bore no growth rings. This was interpreted to mean that Spitsbergen had at some time enjoyed a tropical climate, in which trees would grow continually and thus would not create seasonal growth rings. Again under the influence of Velikovsky, it came to be thought that the earth had experienced a catastrophic "tilt" at the time of Atlantis; Spitsbergen, formerly in the tropics,

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was abruptly removed to the Arctic, and the entire globe shuddered with earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions. Thus came about the end of Atlantis. The presence of trees lacking growth rings in Spitsbergen can now be explained without conjuring up such a violent Velikovskian catastrophe. As we have already seen, the continental masses of the earth are not fixed in place but slowly "drift" over the lithosphere. North America has not always been where it is presently, nor has Spitsbergen. Moreover, this movement of the continents was the result, not of a single cosmic event, but of an ongoing geological process that can be measured today. In fact a recent analysis of the ancient continent of Pangaea has shown that, approximately 400 million years ago, the equator ran through both North America and Greenland.29 This would easily account for the presence of tropical trees in Spitsbergen. If the Arctic no longer looks promising as the site of Plato's Atlantis, there is alternatively the opposite pole, Antarctica. The thesis that Atlantis could be found under the ice of Antarctica seems to have first arisen with the discovery in 1929 of the controversial Piri Reis map in Turkey. This sixteenth-century document has been alleged to show the shoreline of Antarctica as it looked before the formation of the present ice cap; since that ice cap has been covering the continent for thousands of years, it is thought by Atlantists that the Piri Reis map must reflect a very ancient period when Antarctica had enjoyed a warmer climate, that is, the period of Atlantis. From this point there is only a short jump to the conclusion that the map could trace its origin back to the Atlanteans themselves, who were obviously skilled cartographers living at the South Pole. Interestingly enough, other interpreters of the Piri Reis map have come to a very different conclusion: Erich von Däniken, for example, regards it as clear evidence of an extraterrestrial visit.30 In truth, however, a sixteenth-century map vaguely outlining the shores of Antarctica proves nothing at all about Atlantis. Phi Reis himself, a Turkish naval officer, wrote on the map that he had studied numerous earlier works in preparing his own chart; that these earlier works were not in agreement is indicated by the fact that the Amazon River is shown twice on the Piri Reis work. Indeed, the entire accuracy of the map leaves much to be desired. It is true nonetheless that Antarctica had a milder climate at some time in the past; this fact is explicable in terms of plate tectonics. Any such mild climate, however, existed in Antarctica long before human beings were around to enjoy it 81 At a result it seems improbable that Plato's Atlantis is to be found at the South Pole.

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ATLANTIS IN AMERICA

The year 1492 was one of major importance to seekers of Atlantis: it was finally clear that there was indeed a vast land in the West, imposing enough to be the fabled Atlantis. As exploration progressed, various portions of the Americas were in turn identified with Plato's island until virtually no area of the newly found land could escape the Atlantean aura. North America as Atlantis, for example, found its champions in Francisco Lopez de Gomara (1553 ) , the famed cartographer Abraham Ortelius (also sixteenth century), Francis Bacon (c. i600), and G. Sanson (1689) ; the last named drew an elaborate map of North America complete with Atlantean provinces. Nor was Central America neglected : in 1768 C. de Pauw argued that Central America was Plato's island, and later support for this thesis is found in the works of J. R. MacCulloch (1841) and Louis de Launay (1936) . Those who see South America as Atlantis include A. Snider-Pellegrine (1859) and P. H. Fawcett (1925) ; both men focused much of their attention on Brazil, and Fawcett even lost his life exploring the inner depths of Brazil in search of remnants of the "ancient white Atlantean civilization." The evidence to support such theses was usually of the cultural and architectural variety discussed earlier. The Amerind artifacts, impressive sites such as Teotihuacan and Tiahuanaco, rumours of lost cities along the Amazon, and mysteries like the Nasca Lines in Peru, all came to be seen as solid proof that Atlantis had been the Americas. There was, however, a slight problem with the theory: America was very much above the waters, while Atlantis was supposed to be submerged. There was also the familiar problem of chronology: the Amerind cultures did not appear to have reached any Atlantean peak as early as 9600 B.C. Finally, there was a distance problem: Plato implied that Atlantis was relatively close to Spain, and America was not. Gradually it became apparent to most American Atlantists that some modifications would have to be made to the theory; it was Lewis Spence who finally, in the 192os, revised the theory by postulating an Antilia, from which the Amerinds had come to the Americas after the destruction of their Atlantic island. It was now to be understood that the obvious Atlantean features of the Amerind civilizations were due to this colonization; Atlantis itself had to be moved back into and under the Atlantic Ocean. This approach to the Atlantis problem is well represented in the books of H. T. Wilkins.82 THE HOMERIC ATLANTIS

While it is true that the name "Atlantis" appears nowhere in Greek

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literature before Plato, an enigmatic island which appears in Homer's Odyssey has been seen by several classical scholars as the prototype for Plato's island. This island, called Scheria by Homer, is the land of the Phaeacians, a mighty maritime people who end Odysseus' travels by taking him home to Ithaca. For this good deed the Phaeacians are threatened with ruin by the sea god Poseidon. As Homer describes Scheria, there is much to remind one of Atlantis: the palace of King Alcinous has doors of gold and walls of bronze; there is an imposing temple to Poseidon; the capital city is walled and is served by a large harbour; the entire island is mountainous, with numerous springs and rivers; the land is rich in metals; the people are seafaring and claim to live at a great distance from the rest of mankind; they are also related, they say, to the gods themselves; and, as mentioned, a threat of ruin hangs over their heads because of Poseidon's wrath at their custom of giving free passage to wanderers like Odysseus. The sea god's specific threat is to overshadow the city with a wall of mountains; the Odyssey does not tell us if this happened, but leaves the Phaeacians attempting to prevent such an occurrence by propitiating the god.33 Scheria thus seems to be a good candidate for Plato's Atlantis. To equate Scheria with Atlantis, however, does not really solve any problems, since no scholar today is at all sure where Scheria was! For many years the favourite location for Scheria was the island of Corfu (where the ancient geographer Strabo placed it) ; in recent years other sites have been proposed, such as Tartessos, Carthage, Sicily, and even Palestine. Moreover, many scholars are convinced that Scheria was no real place, but was a creation of Homer's imagination; in this case, Plato is thought to have "out-Homered Homer" by creating his own imaginary "Scheria" in Atlantis. That Homer may not have had a real place in mind for his Scheria is indicated, according to some schools of thought, by the name "Scheria" itself. Apparently schera was the Phoenician word for "market," and "Scheria" could then be interpreted simply as "market city," or "a place of trade," a good literary name for an imaginary city.34 To be fair it must be admitted that "Scheria" could have been a logical name for Phoenicians to give to a colony, perhaps like Tartessos, founded on an important trade route. All in all, it is difficult to decide whether Homer is giving us a literary fiction or a historical reality under an unfamiliar name. One other possibility remains: a scholar named Walter Leaf became convinced that Scheria was in fact Homer's name for Atlantis; in 1915 he proposed that this "Scheria-Atlantis" was the very historical island of Crete in the Aegean.S5 Leaf was, to be sure, not the

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first person to equate Atlantis with Crete: James Baikie, an Egyptologist, had made the suggestion in 190o, and K. T. Frost had repeated it in 1909. The reputation and authority of Leaf, however, were such that Crete became the object of Atlantean attention for the first time in the long search. ATLANTIS ON CRETE

The possibility that Atlantis could have been ancient Crete would not have occurred to anyone before 1900 because knowledge of Crete was then limited to the relatively late Archaic-Classical era. At the turn of the century, however, Sir Arthur Evans began to excavate the hill at Kephala in search of prehistoric remains. The result of this excavation was the rediscovery of the palace of Knossos and of the entire Bronze Age civilization now known as Minoan after the legendary King Minos of Crete. The extent of this long-forgotten civilization soon became clear as two other palaces were excavated at Phaestos and Mallia. Subsequent excavations would reveal that Minoan Crete had expanded well beyond its own physical boundaries to exercise control over numerous Aegean islands. It quickly became common to speak of the "Thalassocracy of Minoan Crete." By the middle of this century it was agreed that the Minoan civilization had flourished between 3000 and 1400 B.c. The Ievel of culture achieved by the Minoans was clearly attested to by the frescoes, pottery, goldwork, and other artifacts found; what was not at all clear was the reason for Crete's sudden eclipse in the fifteenth century B.c., an eclipse that seemed to occur when Crete was at the height of her prosperity. In short it appeared that the civilization of Minoan Crete had not died a natural death, but had been murdered by some as yet unknown assailant. In light of this, the thesis that Minoan Crete was Plato's Atlantis began to interest classical scholars. Here was an advanced civilization, based on an island, that had been brought to a sudden end. There were, however, obvious problems with the Atlantis-Crete equation: Plato's date of c. 9500 B.C. made no sense for Minoan Crete; the island of Crete was much smaller than Atlantis; and Crete's location inside the Mediterranean did not harmonize with Plato's Atlantic location in any way imaginable. For these reasons the Minoan hypothesis remained for many years on the fringe of Atlantean research. This situation changed radically in 1967, when the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos began an excavation at Akrotiri on the volcanic island of Thera (also known as Santorini) some I I o kilometres north of Crete. Marinatos had long been obsessed with a

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theory he had first put forward in 1939: in that year, having come across pieces of pumice and other evidence in an excavation at Amnisos on the northern coast of Crete, Marinatos theorized that the sudden demise of Minoan civilization had not been brought about by the hand of man, but by a natural catastrophe, namely, a massive eruption of the volcano of Thera. It was not until 1967, however, that Marinatos had the opportunity to test this thesis by actual excavation. Marinatos quickly found the evidence he desired : at Akrotiri an entire settlement of clear Minoan character began to emerge from the thick shroud of volcanic debris that had buried it. There could no longer be any doubt as to a violent Bronze Age eruption of Thera, and in the space of two years the Atlantis on Crete hypothesis found great popular favour. The year 1969 saw three major books on the subject,HB and the popular media loudly proclaimed that the key to the Atlantis mystery had been found at last. By 1978 the Minoan hypothesis had revived interest in Atlantis equal in intensity to that of the days of Donnelly and Spence, and seemed to provide a reasonable alternative to all the other sites suggested for Plato's lost island.

7

Volcanoes and Thera THE VOLCANIC DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS

The possibility that Plato was describing a volcanic island in his Atlantis was long ignored mainly because there are no direct references to volcanism in the Timaeus or the Critias. On the contrary, the sinking of Atlantis is clearly ascribed to earthquakes and floods, phenomena which need not be associated with a volcanic eruption. Yet there are indirect hints in the Critias that Atlantis could have had a volcanic nature: the presence of hot and cold springs, the extreme richness of the soil, and the white, black, and red stone quarried in the island are all characteristic of a volcanic landmass. Even the circular hill of the royal city can be interpreted as a typical volcanic peak. There is, however, a more compelling geological reason for regarding Atlantis as volcanic: volcanism is now understood to be a proven means of submerging landmasses suddenly (even in one day and night) and permanently. Other natural processes work much more slowly and can often be reversed. Moreover, extensive studies of recent volcanic eruptions have shown that earthquakes and floods, such as those associated with the demise of Atlantis, often occur in connection with explosive events. For these reasons it is no longer feasible to neglect the concept of a volcanic Atlantis. THE NATURE OF VOLCANOES

A volcano is essentially a vent in the crust of the earth through which internal molten material, usually known as magma, is externally expelled. As the ejected material builds up around this vent, a mountainlike landform develops. The actual process of ejection is what is meant by the term "eruption."

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What causes volcanoes to behave as they do was not at all clear until the development of the theory of plate tectonics. As the plates which compose the earth came to be delineated, it was soon realized that most of the world's volcanoes (over ninety-five percent in fact) are associated with plate boundaries. The mid-Atlantic ridge is, as we have previously seen, the boundary between diverging plates, and all along its length there is found undersea volcanic activity; it is this activity that has been creating the above-sea island of Iceland. Volcanism is also present where plates converge : Where an oceanic plate bumps against a continent, ... it plunges under the lighter continental plate.... When the downplunging material descends deep enough it melts and is very slowly recycled back to a mid-ocean ridge in a sort of conveyorbelt type of action.... The association of active volcanism with descending plates is not accidental, but is due to degassing of the downgoing ... material.1 In the Aegean Sea, for example, the collision of the African and Aegean plates is causing the oceanic tip of the African plate to plunge under the continental Aegean plate; this plunge is taking place in a deep trench south of Crete. As the African plate descends, it releases melted material which then rises to feed the volcanoes of the Aegean, which take the form of a volcanic island arc. This entire process is today known as subduction, and can be seen most vividly in the so-called volcanic Ring of Fire surrounding the Pacific Ocean. "The subduction of the lithosphere is perhaps the most significant phenomenon in global tectonics. Subduction not only explains what happens to old lithosphere but also accounts for many of the geologic processes that shape the earth's surface," including volcanism.' While most of the earth's volcanoes are connected with tectonic movement, not all volcanoes are alike. Indeed there is so much variation in volcanic behaviour that several methods of classifying volcanoes have been developed over the years. One of the earliest classifications was based on the fact that some volcanoes erupt only a single time, while others tend to erupt over and over again. Volcanoes were divided into those that are active, dormant, or extinct. An active volcano is one that has erupted in historical times, and there are approximately 450 such volcanoes on earth; a dormant volcano is one in a period of quiescence but capable of renewing activity; an extinct volcano is considered to be incapable of further eruptive activity. Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to differentiate between a volcano that is merely dormant and one that is truly extinct.

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This simple classification, however, did not deal with differences in eruptive intensity, and volcanoes were then divided into those that erupt mildly and those that erupt violently. The former came to be called effusive and the latter explosive. While it is not unknown for a particular volcano to change its activity from explosive to effusive (or vice versa), it is generally agreed that most volcanoes show a persistent tendency towards either an effusive or an explosive type of activity.3 It is now clear that the intensity of a volcanic eruption is largely dependent upon the amount of silica and gas in magma : the more silica and gas present, the more violent the eruption. Also important is the ease with which the gas is allowed to escape : if the gas can escape with relative ease, a mild effusion of magma tends to result; on the other hand, if the gas meets impediments in its escape, a violent explosion is likely to take place as pressure builds up within the volcanic cone. Still another factor is the presence of water: it has been shown that contact with water tends to increase the violence of an eruption ;4 this is especially of importance in regard to volcanic islands such as those in the Aegean. A final factor concerns dormancy : the longer a volcano has been dormant, the more likely it is to experience an explosive eruption.° The least destructive type of eruption is, of course, the effusive. As illustrated by Iceland and the Hawaiian Islands, effusive eruptions produce relatively mild explosions and quiet flows of lava ( that is, liquid magma). The Icelandic type of eruption usually takes place along a fissure, from which vast floods of lava are expelled; the Hawaiian type of eruption is different mainly in featuring separate points of ejection rather than one continuous fissure. In general effusive eruptions can be said to create land (by lava flow) rather than remove land from the face of the earth; thus Atlantis is not likely to have been destroyed by an effusive eruption. It is through the agency of an explosive eruption, however, that landmasses can be and have been obliterated. In an explosive eruption a large mass of magma is ejected from the volcanic vent with great force. The ejecta, usually termed pyroclastics, or tephra, include material of various sizes, from very fine dust (often shot high into the atmosphere) to ash, pumice, bombs, and blocks. The finer ejecta have been known to travel great distances, while the larger bombs and blocks tend to remain in the immediate vicinity of the cone. As a result of this process, the volcano in fact depletes itself. It may destroy a large portion of its former mass in the explosion itself by literally blowing its head off; or, it may empty its interior magma chamber to such an extent that its upper walls are no longer suffi-

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ciently supported and collapse into the now-emptied chamber, forming what is presently known as a collapse caldera. In either event a part of the volcano "disappears" in the eruptive process. This is especially noticeable in the case of volcanic islands: since these islands are essentially the peaks of underwater volcanoes, the loss of the upper portion in an eruption may leave little or no land at all above the surface of the water. Thus Atlantis, if it was in fact a volcanic island, could have disappeared beneath the sea as a result of an explosive eruption. THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS

As a destructive force, a volcano has few rivals in nature. An eruption can not only obliterate a landmass, but it can also make what land remains uninhabitable; the relative suddenness with which it strikes can exact a great toll on human life; and the forces unleashed by an eruption often affect a much wider area than that of the volcano itself. Moreover, just as there are different types of volcanoes, so there are many different phenomena attendant upon a volcanic eruption; while not all eruptions will produce all these phenomena, the most destructive will feature a complex, and often deadly, combination. One phenomenon commonly associated with a volcanic eruption is the lava flow. As we have seen, the expulsion of large amounts of liquid magma is typical of the effusive type of eruption seen in Iceland and Hawaii and is less important in the more explosive types of eruption. Nonetheless, lava flows can be extremely destructive in terms of property: in 1906, for example, Vesuvius expelled a massive amount of lava which totally destroyed nearby villages; "the lava reached a thickness of as much as 7 m, and buried houses to the second story, pouring in through windows and doors."' Similar disasters have been associated with Mt. Etna (in 1669 and 1928) and Paricutin (1943) , but the greatest lava flow recorded in human history took place in Iceland in 1783, when lava produced by a single eruption spread over an area of about 56o square kilometres. Fortunately there was little loss of life in these disasters, since the relative slowness of advancing lava usually affords enough time for people to escape the endangered area. More hazardous to human life is the volcanic mud flow produced by the action of water (always present during an eruption) on debris accumulated on the slopes of a volcano. Destructive mud flows have taken place in the American Cascades; one, some five thousand years ago, covered about 324 square kilometres in the Puget Sound area. Because mud flows are less viscous than lava flows, they generally

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travel at a faster rate, even as great as 90 kilometres an hour, thus making escape more difficult. A third type of flow hazard is the volcanic ash flow which occurs when a large amount of ash overflows the vent of the volcano. Flows of this sort are known to have travelled "as much as Soo km, so rapidly that they reached these great distances still so hot that as the ash particles settled to the ground they stuck together, and in the central part of the mass became densely welded under the weight of the overlying material."' The best-known example of such an ash flow took place at Mt. Katmai in 1912: ash poured out of fissures and travelled some 20 kilometres in less than one day; the end result was a valley filled to a depth of over i o metres by ash. Deposits as thick as 100 metres have also been recorded.' Both the speed and the volume of an ash flow make it a serious hazard to life and property. Volcanic ash, however, can be equally destructive in other forms. Rather than flow down the sides of a volcano, ash can be expelled explosively into the air; it then rains down upon the surrounding area in the form of a "tephra fall." Tephra falls of note have occurred at Vesuvius (A.D. 79 ), Mt. Katmai (1912 ), Hekla (1947), and Taal (1965) , all of which tell a similar tale of destruction. In the area of Vesuvius, towns such as Pompeii and Stabiae were totally buried by the tephra fall, resulting in the death of 2,000 people. The roofs of houses collapsed under the weight of the ash, accounting for many of the deaths; deadly fumes accompanying the fall also took a toll. At Mt. Katmai, in addition to the ash flow previously mentioned, "more than 16 cubic km of ash and pumice were blown into the air and rained down over the surrounding land and ocean,"° clogging rivers and wells with ash. The effects of tephra fall at Hekla and Taal were just as destructive. A tephra fall in fact brings danger from many quarters: in addition to the actual fall itself, there is the hazard of poisonous fumes; water supplies can likewise be poisoned; vegetation can be smothered, disrupting the food supply for survivors. Studies of these effects of tephra falls have been made at great length in Iceland and have shown that a deposit of c. 15 centimetres can render land unproductive for as long as five years, while a deposit of c. 20 centimetres can cause land to be abandoned for decades.1" Some effects are quite insidious: in the 194.7 and 197o eruptions of Hekla, for example, fluorine present in deposited ash was responsible for the poisoning of thousands of animals; in the 194.3 eruption of Paricutin animals starved to death after their teeth were worn away by chewing on ashcovered feed. Volcanic ash, moreover, can have a long-term effect on world

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climate. Finer particles can be blown high into the upper atmosphere and then circle the globe for years, usually causing temperatures to fall by blocking the heat of the sun. In 1783, for example, there were major eruptions in both Japan and Iceland, and, as a result, the sun was so hindered in heating the surface of the earth that the 1783-84 winter turned out to be one of the most severe ever experienced in North America and Europe." A similar phenomenon took place after eruptions in 1814-15 (Luzon and Tambora) , in 1883 (Krakatoa) , and in 1912 (Mt. Katmai) . Indeed in 1978 the Washington Post carried an interview with several scientists which began with the statement that "the freezing temperatures and heavy snows of this winter may have their origins in the eruptions last year of the world's volcanoes with three times the frequency of 1976."12 Thus, the effects of volcanic tephra can be both immediate and long term, making complete recovery more difficult. Other destructive phenomena now known to be associated with the production of volcanic ash in an eruption include "base surge" and "glowing clouds." The former phenomenon was prominent in the violent 1965 eruption of Taal in the Philippines: as the eruption grew in intensity, great amounts of ash were expelled; at the same time, "around the base of the vertical eruption column, ring-shaped expanding clouds formed and rushed outward with hurricane speed."18 These clouds, heavy with ash, sandblasted the sides of trees facing the volcano, wearing away as much as 15 centimetres of wood; they also deposited ash to a thickness of more than 3o millimetres some 5 kilometres from the volcano; thicker deposits (up to 2.5 metres) were laid down closer to the vent.14 Known today as base surges, these destructive clouds "are characteristic of the rather low temperature explosions that result from the involvement of external water, and have been observed during eruptions in the ocean."16 Thus base surge could well have been present in a postulated eruption of the island of Atlantis. A similar phenomenon, though even more destructive, is the socalled glowing cloud, or nuee ardente. These clouds appear black in daylight but take on a red glow at night; they are essentially avalanches of blocks, dust, and gas, moving down from the summit of a volcano at rapid speeds (even as great as 15o kilometres an hour) . Famous glowing clouds were formed in the 1902 eruptions of Soufriere and Mt. Pelee volcanoes. At Soufriere the cloud swept down the mountain, destroying trees and houses in its path; more than 1,500 people died as a result. In the eruption of Mt. Pelee a cloud of dust and gas with a temperature of 1500° F was formed; this cloud was heavier than air, and thus rolled swiftly down the mountain. The city

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of St. Pierre was overwhelmed, and its 25,000 inhabitants were killed.18 In all some 40,000 people died in this eruption of Mt. Pelee. The phenomenon of the glowing cloud indicates again the danger created by the presence of gas during a volcanic eruption. The gases commonly associated with eruptions include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric acid, and hydrofluoric acid, all of which present a potential hazard to life. In fact the sole fatality of the eruption of Eldafell on Heimaey in 1973 was a man asphyxiated by gases accumulated in a basement area. Plant life can also fall victim to volcanic gases: such gases "damage foliage and cause fruit to drop, and may bring about complete denudation of the plants, and ultimately their death."17 Moreover, these gases have been known to form an acid rain which causes extensive destruction by burning; both people and plants, even those over 500 kilometres from the volcano, were injured by such a rain in the eruption of Katmai in 1912. The hazard is increased by the fact that these gases are not quick to disperse following an eruption but can remain in the atmosphere for a long time. The occurrence of earthquakes is still another factor which increases the destructive potential of a volcanic eruption. It has long been observed that many volcanic eruptions are either preceded by or followed by earthquake shocks of substantial magnitude which are felt over a wider area than that of the volcano itself. For example, the 1925 eruption of Thera in the Aegean began one month after a strong earthquake hit the southern portion of Greece; the end of the eruption in 1926 was followed by another earthquake centred under the island of Rhodes. In more recent times the 196o Chilean earthquake was followed in forty-eight hours by the eruption of Puyehue in the Andes. At present geologists do not clearly understand the connection between earthquakes and volcanic outbreaks. Some are inclined to think that earthquakes may "trigger" an eruption, and point to the fact that such eruptions as those of Vesuvius (A.D. 79), Lamington (1951) , Bezymianny (1956) , and Arenål (1968) were all preceded by earthquake activity.1Ø Other geologists, however, view volcanic earthquakes as the consequence, rather than the cause, of an eruption. Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that volcanic activity can and often does take place in close connection with earthquakes, and the damage caused by earthquakes is well known and needs no general description here, except in one particular respect. While the damage caused by ground-shaking in an earthquake can be awesome, even greater destruction can be brought about by the fires which ground-shaking often precipitates. The best-known

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illustration of this point is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906: "The magnitude of the shock was 8.25 and the area over which it was felt was some 780,000 square km.... The greatest damage was done by the great conflagration following the earthquake."1° A similar phenomenon was seen in the 1923 Kwanto earthquake in Japan: Tokyo was devastated by raging fire-storms that killed about 38,000 people and destroyed a great part of the city. Obviously the degree of hazard presented by fires after an earthquake will depend on the nature of the settlement affected: a city like Tokyo, where open cooking fires were common, is very vulnerable, as were ancient cities which made extensive use of open fires for both cooking and illumination. Thus, in considering the overall hazard potential of a volcanic eruption, one should not ignore the danger presented by earthquake-induced fires. One other hazard wrought by volcanic eruption remains to be described: the tsunami, or "tidal wave." A good definition of a tsunami has been provided by G. B. Oakeshott: "The seismic sea wave, or tsunami ( `tidal wave') , is a wave which is caused by earth movements on the sea floor or by submarine landslides. The wave may move at 300 to 400 miles per hour, with wave lengths from wave crest to wave crest of many miles in open water. Approaching shore, water may pile up to 50 or more feet in height."20 While submarine displacement of land is usually associated with earthquakes (as in the Chilean earthquake of 196o), volcanic eruptions can also generate massive tsunamis through caldera formation at sea level. The classic example is furnished by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa: when the summit of that volcanic island collapsed inwards after emptying its magma chamber, waves in excess of 3o metres struck the coasts of Java and Sumatra, resulting in the death by drowning of more than 36,000 people. A tsunami wreaks havoc both on its arrival and on its departure: when it strikes coastal areas, it creates an instant flood; when it retreats to the sea, it takes with it everything that is either loose or able to be torn loose, resulting in massive property damage. The actual amount of damage done by a tsunami, however, depends on local conditions: "the geometry of the coastline, the details of offshore and onshore topography, the direction of approach, the amount of energy already expended on intervening islands, and in some cases, the stage of the tide."21 Nonetheless, one thing is clear: if Atlantis collapsed into the sea as a result of a volcanic explosion, tsunamis certainly would have been generated and would have struck nearby coasts, as was the case at Krakatoa. The resulting floods would be in accord with Plato's picture of the end of Atlantis in the Timaeus.

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PLINIAN ERUPTIONS

The most violent type of volcanic eruption known, and hence the type most capable of causing extreme destruction, is the Plinian Eruption. Named in honour of Pliny the Elder, a Roman scientist whose curiosity brought about his death during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the Plinian type of eruption produces many of the hazards described in the preceding section and is often responsible for the sudden disappearance of a sizeable landmass. Such a disappearance will, of course, be most noticeable in the case of a Plinian eruption of a volcanic island where large portions of the island can sink beneath the sea. Being highly explosive, a Plinian eruption generally does not produce significant lava flows; instead, massive amounts of gas and tephra are expelled into the atmosphere, resulting in tephra falls over thousands of kilometres. Glowing clouds, ash flows, and mud flows often are generated. Moreover, so great an amount of magma, in the form of tephra and gas, is expelled that the magma chamber is rapidly depleted, causing the top of the cone to collapse inwards to form a caldera.22 If this collapse takes place at or below sea level, destructive tsunamis will be produced. The destructive potential of a Plinian eruption is perhaps best illustrated by a consideration of several examples. The most famous occurrence of such an eruption was, of course, that of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, but three other Plinian eruptions are also worthy of note: Mazama (Crater Lake) in c. 5000 E.C., Tambora in 1815, and Krakatoa in 1883. While there have been many other Plinian eruptions during man's existence on earth, these four adequately represent the phenomenon. What took place at Vesuvius has been graphically documented, both by ancient sources and by archaeology. Situated by the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius before 79 was a well-forested mountain known as Mt. Somma. The Romans, who enjoyed the area as a vacation resort, b.tlieved Somma to be extinct, and densely populated settlements grew up about its flanks. The first sign that Somma might only be dormant, rather than extinct, came in A.D. 63, when a series of damaging earthquakes took place. Inhabitants of the area, however, did not associate the shocks with an awakening Somma, and so, after repairing the earthquake damage, life went on as before. Then, in August of 79, Somma spewed forth massive amounts of water, gases, ash, and volcanic bombs. Ash from the explosion soon buried surrounding towns such as Pompeii, while the town of Herculaneum was engulfed by a mud flow to a depth of 15 metres. The final death toll rose to 2,000; many were wealthy citizens who delayed too long

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in leaving the area and were consequently overcome by gases and suffocated. When the eruption ended, the shape of Mt. Somma had been radically altered by the creation of a large summit caldera, 3 kilometres in diameter. To a Roman viewing the scene, it would have seemed that the entire top of the volcano had simply disappeared. Vesuvius was certainly neither the first nor the last volcano to experience such violence. Over six thousand years ago an even more destructive Plinian eruption occurred at the site of the present Crater Lake in Oregon. The Cascade Mountains of the American northwest contain numerous volcanoes, one of which, called Mt. Mazama, erupted violently sometime around 5000 B.C. Before the eruption Mazama was a conical mountain some 4,000 metres tall which, like Vesuvius, had been enjoying an extended period of dormancy. When the volcano awoke, however, it was with incredible violence : A great cloud of tephra rose many kilometres into the air, which, blown by the wind, spread out to great distances.... As the eruption reached its climax great incandescent avalanches of ash and pumice rushed down the valleys to distances as great as 6o km.... Melting ice and snow on the flanks of the mountain must have caused floods, and the water mixed with ash and pumice to form mudflows.28 This entire process lasted only a few days; at its conclusion a caldera some to kilometres in diameter and over 1,000 metres in depth marked the former site of Mazama's cone. Precipitation over the ensuing years has accumulated to form Crater Lake within the caldera's walls. Volcanic activity continues at the site, as a small cinder cone is presently being built up (Wizard Island) . The damage done by the eruption of Mazama is difficult to estimate, since no records from that early period exist. The Klamath Indians of that area, however, preserve a legend in which two chiefs, one stationed on Mazama and the other on Mt. Shasta in California, threw rocks and flames at each other; suddenly Mazama is said to have collapsed under the feet of its chief, sending him down to the underworld and leaving a huge hole in the mountain.24 It is thus clear that the eruption of Mazama must have affected the early inhabitants of that area; indeed, given the violence of the eruption, it is probable that life in the area was seriously disrupted for some time. Much more is known about the 1815 eruption of Tambora. Before 1812 the volcano of Tambora, located on Sumbawa Island in central

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Indonesia, some 400 kilometres east of Java, was thought to be extinct. The mountain rose approximately 4,000 metres and had a small crater on its summit. The first indication that the volcano was still alive came with the appearance of a dark cloud above the summit in 1812. Mild volcanic activity was to take place for the next few years. In April of 1815, however, activity quickly intensified and climaxed in a massive explosion on April to and 11. Great clouds of dust were formed as the volcano expelled ash some 20 kilometres into the atmosphere; tephra was deposited to a depth of 1.5 metres near Tambora, and 5o centimetres 15o kilometres to the west. In all tephra fell over a total area of 600 to 1,40o kilometres from the volcano, and darkness descended on the area for as long as three days. Noise from the eruption alarmed people as far away as 1,700 kilometres, and towards the end of the activity earthquakes were reported in the vicinity of Sumbawa. As had happened at Vesuvius and Mazama, the summit of Tambora collapsed to form a caldera: this time the caldera was 6 kilometres in diameter and 700 metres in depth. Fortunately, since the collapse did not take place below sea level, relatively mild waves of only 4 metres were generated.25 In many respects the most destructive effects of the Tambora eruption were indirect: the huge amount of ash ejected into the atmosphere not only caused a blockage of the sun's rays, but also formed ash rains which fell for several days and damaged vegetation in Sumbawa and its neighbouring islands; relief-bringing ships were hindered in their navigation by large amounts of pumice floating in the surrounding waters. The end result was hunger and massive outbreaks of disease, as reflected in the casualty figures: 10,000 dead directly as a result of the volcanic eruption, 82,000 dead as a result of disease and starvation. Indeed, in terms of its effect on human life, the eruption of Tambora must be considered one of the greatest natural catastrophes of recorded history. Equally violent, though less destructive to human life, was the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. In the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra (hence not far from Tambora) had stood in prehistoric times a large volcanic mountain known today as the primary Krakatoa. At some time in the distant past, this volcano underwent a massive Plinian eruption which created a great caldera at sea level and left only remnants of the former landmass above water. These remnants, plus new volcanic cones rising out of the caldera, composed the Krakatoa group in 1883: Krakatoa Island itself (800 metres tall, g by 5 kilometres in size), Verlaten Island, and Lang Island.

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These three islands were only the visible portions of what was essentially a volcanic stub beneath sea level. It was fortunate, as events would prove, that these islands were not inhabited in 1883. Before that time the last-known activity in the Krakatoa group had occurred some two hundred years earlier, in I 680. Like the other volcanoes examined here, however, Krakatoa had not become extinct but was merely dormant, gathering its energy for another Plinian explosion. The first sign of renewed activity came in 1877, when there were some mild discharges of dust and pumice; yet, no serious explosions were to take place until 1883. In May of 1883 earthquakes struck Java and Sumatra, and ash and pumice came to be expelled from Krakatoa Island in increasing amounts. This ejection of tephra continued through the month of June, but did not reach its climax until August 26. On that day began a series of explosions that would last three days in all, with the single most violent outbreak occurring on August 27. At the climax of the eruption ash was expelled from Krakatoa to a height of some 8o kilometres; at least 15 metres of ash were deposited on the other islands of the group. This damage was increased by the generation of glowing clouds: it has been estimated that approximately 6o metres of deposits from such clouds came to rest on top of the airlaid ash deposits.26 An area of 750,000 square kilometres experienced significant tephra falls before the eruption ended. Moreover, so much dust remained suspended in the upper atmosphere that it travelled around the globe for months, providing colourful sunsets everywhere. During the eruption the amount of ash present in the air had brought total darkness to the immediate area. Additional problems were created by the huge amounts of pumice floating in the strait, as had also been the case at Tambora, and by the overwhelming noise of the eruption, which, at least on August 27, was heard 5,000 kilometres away. When it was all over, Krakatoa Island had lost most of its landmass in a caldera collapse. The caldera created by the eruption was as deep as 279 metres, and it measured 8 kilometres NE-SW, 5 kilometres N-S, and i 2 kilometres E-W.27 Because the collapse had taken place below sea level, massive tsunamis were generated: waves from zo to 35 metres in height savagely struck the coasts of Java and Sumatra on August 26 and 27, destroying 297 villages and killing over 36,000 people. A comparative examination of these four Plinian eruptions can provide a useful profile of such explosions. In general five features seem to be basic to the Plinian outburst. First, the volcano experiences a lengthy period of dormancy before the eruption; in fact, so

Thera: The Modern Town of Phira with Pumice Layers Visible Beyond

Thera: The Caldera and Its Encircling Cliffs

Thera: A General View over the Minoan Ruins at Akrotiri

Thera: A Crumbled Stairway in the Minoan Settlement at Akrotiri, the Result of the Earthquake and Eruption

Thera: The West House and Plaza in the Minoan Settlement at Akrotiri

Thera: Frescoed Room with Boxing Children and Antelopes

Knossos: The North Porch at the Palace of Minos, with Its Bull Fresco Visible behind the Restored Columns

Knossos: The Western Magazines of the Palace of Minos

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quiet is the volcano that it usually comes to be regarded as extinct. Second, there tend to be preliminary phenomena such as earthquakes which signal the onset of renewed volcanic activity; at times, however, earthquakes may occur towards the end of the eruption rather than at its start (as at Tambora). Third, the explosion itself is short lived, usually lasting from a few days to a few months at most. Fourth, these explosions invariably produce massive amounts of damaging tephra; ash and dust tend to fall upon the surrounding areas and cause vegetation to die, while pumice often clogs waterways in the case of a volcanic island. Finally, the eruptive process concludes with the collapse of the depleted volcanic cone and the creation of a caldera; if this collapse occurs at sea level, destructive tsunamis will normally be generated. With the completion of the eruption the volcano will lapse into relative inactivity once more, often building up a cinder cone in the caldera; chances are excellent that, after a lengthy period of recuperation, the volcano will again undergo a Plinian eruption, as clearly was the case at Krakatoa. THE PLINIAN ERUPTION OF THERA (SANTORINI)

All the features basic to a Plinian type of eruption are thought to have characterized the Bronze Age explosion of the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea; it is this event which has recently become the focal point of Atlantean studies as more and more researchers argue on behalf of the Minoan hypothesis. It is consequently of crucial importance to understand what took place on Thera and how it affected the rest of the Aegean region. The geological history of the Aegean is a tale of change, both sudden and slow. In the remote past, perhaps 3o million years ago, a mountainous landmass existed where there is now water; called Aegeis, this landmass stretched from the Ionian Sea to Crete and Asia Minor. About 13 million years ago Aegeis began to break up as large sections were flooded. Aegeis seems to have totally emerged several million years later, but about 6 million years ago the area was once more flooded, turning into the sea familiar today. The islands of the present-day Aegean are thus in reality the tops of submarine mountains which once stood high and dry on Aegeis. The growing understanding of plate tectonics has enabled modern scientists to trace the geological processes active in the Aegean. We now know that the Aegean is a small but rapidly moving continental plate which carries southern Greece, Crete, and western Turkey, as well as the Aegean Sea. This Aegean plate is presently moving towards the southwest, and its southern boundary is overthrusting the northern oceanic part of the African plate. This latter plate is ac-

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cordingly being subducted into a trench just south of the island of Crete: "the sea floor south of the Cretan arc is being overridden from the north-east and sinks beneath the Aegean Sea."28 One result of this process of subduction is the creation of a volcanic island arc north of Crete. A prominent member of this volcanic arc is the island of Thera. Thera has been known by many names over its long history: Thera, according to Herodotus, became so named after a Greek colony led by one Theras settled there around goo B.c.;29 before that time the island had apparently been called Kalliste, or "the most beautiful"; in the much later period of the Venetian occupation, the island became Santorini, a corruption of St. Irene, its patron saint. The name which gives the greatest insight into the nature of the island, however, is its earliest name of Strongule, or "the round island." Like Krakatoa, the volcano to which it is most akin, Thera had, in its primary form, been a single round island crowned by a volcanic peak perhaps as tall as i,600 metres; this island had been built up slowly from the sea, as a result of the subduction process, around a limestone outcrop some 56o metres tall ( the present Prophet Elias Mountain) . Approximately twenty thousand years ago this primary Thera underwent a Plinian eruption which drastically altered its physical appearance. The building process then began again, and by the Bronze Age (which began c. 3000 B.e.) Thera once more had the shape of a round island with tall volcanic peaks atop; it was approximately 1g kilometres in diameter. Today, however, Thera has an entirely different form. The voIcanic peaks are gone, and in their place there is an imposing caldera partially surrounded by steep cliffs; where a single landmass once existed, there are now three separate remnants: Thera proper, an island of about 72 square kilometres, Therasia (g square kilometres), and Aspronisi (0.13 square kilometres). These islands are in fact only scattered parts of Thera's ancient outer rim. What happened at Thera to cause such destruction has now been pieced together by both geologists and archaeologists. As was the case with the other volcanoes examined, Thera had been enjoying a long period of dormancy until the second millennium B.C. The island with its rich volcanic soil was both heavily forested and settled. Sometime in the second millennium, however, the usual warning signals of an awakening volcano appeared: earthquakes disturbed the peaceful lives of the inhabitants. It is difficult to determine how many quakes struck and how intense they were, but it would appear that the inhabitants became alarmed enough to leave the island in great numbers. When the explosion finally broke out, few people were left on Thera to become its direct victims.

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The explosion itself was clearly of the Plinian type: it produced massive amounts of gas and tephra and concluded in the formation of a typical collapse caldera. It is probable, on the basis of other Plinian eruptions, that this highly explosive phase was of short duration, and the entire eruptive process may have been carried out within one year.8° The amount of tephra ejected during the eruption is graphically witnessed today by the huge tephra layers which still, despite centuries of erosion, overlie much of the island. In the quarries located near the modern town of Phira, three layers of tephra have been detected: that directly above the Bronze Age soil contains greyish pumice and is about 4.5 metres thick; the next layer, often called the "coloured ribbon layer," consists of stratified bands of white, pink, and grey tephra and is approximately 1.5 metres thick; the final layer consists of fine white ash to a present-day thickness of 18 to 24 metres. It is believed, however, that the original depth of this topmost deposit

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would have been close to 6o metres, much of this being laid down by base surge action.31 Without doubt, such massive amounts of tephra over the island obliterated what life remained, leaving Thera uninhabitable for perhaps hundreds of years. Damage inflicted by tephra fall, however, was not restricted to Thera itself. Core samples obtained by deep-sea drilling have shown that tephra from the Bronze Age eruption was scattered over a large section of the eastern Mediterranean: about 100 kilometres from Thera cores revealed tephra deposits as thick as 212 centimetres.32 In all, tephra from the eruption is now known to have extended as far as 700 kilometres southeast of Thera; the total area thought to have experienced tephra fallout amounts to approximately 200,000 square kilometres. This tephra was apparently carried by strong winds blowing from the northwest at the time of the explosion. It is even possible that tephra fallout would have been experienced as far away as Egypt had these winds been both strong and persistent.33 As is to be expected in a Plinian eruption, so much tephra was ejected that the magma chamber of the volcano soon became empty and collapsed inwards to create a caldera. How much material fell into the caldera is impossible to determine with great precision, but a reasonable estimate is about 72 cubic kilometres; the area of the caldera is a much more easily measurable 83 square kilometres, making this caldera almost four times the size of that formed in the collapse of Krakatoa (23 square kilometres). The depth of the caldera varies between 200 and 4.00 metres; indeed, so deep is the caldera that ships cannot reach bottom with their anchors but must tie themselves to buoys specially provided for that purpose. The formation of this awesome caldera in effect swallowed up most of the island. Only sheer cliffs, averaging 25o metres in height, were left to bear witness to the missing central core; these cliffs were themselves broken: there is a gap of approximately 1,700 metres between Thera proper and Therasia, one of 2,50o metres between Therasia and Aspronisi, and one of 2,200 metres between Aspronisi and Thera proper. It was through these gaps that seawater entered the caldera at the climax of the eruption. The collapse of so much material beneath sea level and the breaching of the caldera walls by seawater set the stage for the generation of tsunamis. That one or more tsunamis were created cannot be doubted, especially since tsunamis have been recorded after all historical eruptions of Thera ;34 moreover, the waves generated by the very similar collapse of Krakatoa furnish an excellent exemplar. What is in doubt at present, however, is the scale of the waves created at Thera, and here most authorities are not in agreement. As Dorothy Vitaliano has recently written,

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Some utterly unrealistic estimates have been made of the probable height of the Santorin tsunami, based on misconceptions as to the generation and propagation of such waves. One view has assumed that the wave was generated by an explosion in which all the energy of the eruption was released at once, that it rose to a height of several thousand feet at the explosion center, and that it spread in every direction as a mountain of water, smashing everything in front of it.... Others have pictured the tsunami as inflicting damage to exactly the same level all around the shores of the Mediterranean, ... but ... the level to which the water will rise at any particular place depends more on local factors than on the wave's original height.35 What is gradually becoming clear is that tsunamis generated by the collapse of Thera would not have had a uniform effect all over the Aegean area. Indeed, the very fact that three island-remnants bordered the caldera meant that "the wave could not at first propagate freely in all directions, as could a tsunami generated in the open sea.”" For the moment at least it seems wisest to state simply that any tsunami generated by the collapse of Thera could have caused serious damage on nearby coastal areas, such as the northern coast of Crete, only some 11 o kilometres south. The creation of tsunamis would have marked the final act in the Bronze Age drama of Thera. The ash-covered remains were left in silence for centuries until enough humus could develop once again to support human habitation. Meanwhile the volcano itself became quiescent, apparently recovering from the trauma of the great eruption. It was only centuries later, in 197 B.c., that volcanic activity resumed: in that year a mild eruption produced a small island within the caldera between Thera proper and Therasia; from that time on intermittent volcanic activity has been slowly refilling the caldera as a prelude to the next Plinian outburst. As a result prominent features of modern Thera are the so-called Kamenis, or "Burnt Islands," of the caldera, two foreboding landmasses with bleak panoramas of lava and tephra. The escape of sulfurous gases from craters and fissures atop the Kamenis affords a continuous warning that Thera remains an active volcano: "for the moment, though, these receive the ultimate contempt of being treated as tourist attractions."a' THE DATE OF THE BRONZE AGE ERUPTION

If it is now possible to reconstruct the general sequence of events that took place during the eruption of Thera, it is more difficult to set those events in a chronological framework. Attempts made to date the eruption in absolute terms by carbon-14 analysis of organic

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materials have so far proved frustrating: in fact, so wide a range of dates has been obtained (from 250o to 1000 B.C.) that scientists are beginning to suspect that the eruption must have had some peculiar effect, not yet understood, on organic material on the island; similar disruptive effects of volcanic emissions have been noted in New Zealand, Surtsey, and Hawaii, where carbon-14 dates tend to be consistently too old.BB To date the Theran eruption, then, we are Ieft with the relative chronology furnished by a study of pottery styles and decorations. The original framework for such a chronology was constructed by Sir Arthur Evans when he was excavating the palace of Minos at Knossos, Crete, in the early i goos. Partly on the basis of stylistic criteria in pottery, the entire Minoan era was divided into three parts: the Early Minoan (EM) period from c. 3000 to 2000 B.c.; the Middle Minoan (MM) period from c. 2000 to 1550 B.C.; and the Late Minoan (LM) period from c. 1550 to 1100 B.C. Each of these divisions in turn came to be subdivided into three sections identified by Roman numerals. Thus, the EM period was composed of EMI (3000-2400), EMII (2400-2100), and EMIII (2100-2000). At times a further distinction was made within a section: for example, LMI was divided into LMIA (1550-1500) and LMIB (15001450) . In theory all one had to do to date an event was to determine into which category pottery associated with that event fell: a destruction level full of LMIB pottery would thus be dated in the period from 1500 to 1450 B.C. While this scheme worked well in theory, in actual practice it left much to be desired. For example, there is bound to be a certain amount of overlapping between styles : all Minoans did not unanimously decide in 1500 B.C. to switch from LMIA to LMIB decoration on their pots. Instead tastes would gradually change, and pottery of the LMIB type would slowly begin to outnumber that of the LMIA type. This means that there would in fact be periods in which two theoretically successive pottery styles would be contemporaneous. Similarly, local tastes could confuse the picture. A style developed in one area of Crete might be slow to diffuse, so that only one part of the island would be using LMIB styles at a time when the rest of Crete would still be employing LMIA decorations. Thus the recently excavated palace at Zakros in eastern Crete "shows abundant and well advanced LMIB pottery ... [but] the more we proceed towards the West, the more the LMIB style is rare and more archaic. In Amnissos none has been found at all."9° One result of such local phenomena could be that a building destroyed in eastern Crete at a time when LMIB decorations were in use there would be disasso-

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ciated from a destruction in central Crete full of LMIA vases, when in truth both destructions could have occurred in the very same year. Another problem in the relative chronology is created by the subjective nature of the judgements made. For example, it has recently been claimed that "many of the fragments from Knossos with flower decorations which Evans assigned to Late Minoan IA may in fact come from vases made during the following period, Late Minoan IB "40 In other words, what may look like LMIA to one eye can be seen. as LMIB by another. Moreover, there is presently much concern being expressed over Evans' general accuracy in identifying the pottery found at Knossos: critics such as L. R. Palmer have shown that Evans' records are open to serious questions.41 Needless to say, if the originator of the chronology made fundamental errors, then the entire chronological framework could turn out to be virtually meaningless. With these cautions in mind we can turn to the date of the destruction as evidenced by pottery found on Thera. The excavations at Akrotiri have furnished astounding numbers of clay pots of various shapes and sizes, from large storage pithoi to small drinking cups; these have clearly been found in the level of destruction caused by the volcano's eruption and therefore must have been in use at that time. It should be noted that few bronze vessels have so far come to light; indeed, few precious metals of any sort have yet been found. Since corpses are also lacking, it becomes tempting to see the inhabitants escaping from Akrotiri gong with their most valuable possessions, leaving only worthless clay pottery behind. This pottery is essentially decorated in the LMIA style as defined by Evans. Sometimes called the "Floral style," this type of decoration features plant motifs, such as lilies, reeds, or ears of grain; as previously stated, the traditional period assigned to this style is 15501500 B.c. Spyridon Marinatos, the original excavator at Akrotiri, was inclined to place the destruction of the settlement c. 1520-1 500 B.c. on the basis of these pottery finds. However, as already indicated, there seems to have been a considerable overlapping between the styles of the LMIA and LMIB periods. In fact, the floral designs that characterize the former period are also found in the latter.92 What is unique to LMIB is the appearance of marine motifs such as dolphins or shells. This "Marine style" pottery seems to have originated in the area around Zakros in eastern Crete, and, as mentioned earlier, spread westwards slowly; "these exceptionally fine vases are not numerous and were obviously produced by a small group of artists in a relatively short time, while other workshops still continued to turn out typical Late Minoan IA

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styles."4s Indeed, so rare are LMIB vases in central Crete that it was not until 1961, some sixty years after Evans had initiated excavations at Knossos, that the first significant discovery of LMIB pottery was made at Knossos, in the basement area of a building bordering the road which led to the palace. Thus, given the relative scarcity of LMIB pottery outside of eastern Crete, it would be unreasonable to expect to find a great amount of such pottery on Thera, even at the height of that period. Nonetheless, after only a few years of excavation at Akrotiri, several vessels bearing marine motifs (especially dolphins) have come to light, indicating that we need to take a flexible approach to dating the disaster: the predominance of Floral style pottery at Akrotiri should not blind us to the possibility that destruction befell the settlement sometime after 1500 B.c. in the LMIB period (1500-1450 B.c.) . It is clear that an analysis of pottery styles will not allow us to date the destruction of Akrotiri with any real precision. The best that can be said at present is that the end probably came sometime between 1 55o and 145o B.c. Thus, if the eruption of Thera had anything at all to do with the sudden fall of Plato's Atlantis, we must admit that the philosopher's date of 9,000 years before Solon for the end of Atlantis is incorrect. THERA AND THE EASTERN AEGEAN

Given the indisputable fact that Thera experienced a violent Plinian eruption in the late Bronze Age, it is left for us now to inquire about the effects of that event on the Aegean area. On this topic opinions vary to an alarming extent : some scholars, like Vitaliano, minimize the damage done by the eruption on surrounding areas; others, like Leon Pomerance, view the eruption as devastating the entire eastern Mediterranean and throwing several advanced civilizations into an abrupt decline.44 Most important from the point of view of the Minoan hypothesis for Atlantis is the question of how the island of Crete was affected by the eruption and its attendant phenomena, for it is basic to this hypothesis that the physical disappearance of much of Thera was responsible for the political and economic "disappearance" of Minoan Crete in the ancient world. That Minoan Crete would not have escaped the effects of Thera's eruption was argued as long ago as 1939 by Marinatos. After excavating at Amnisos, a harbour town to Knossos, Marinatos postulated that Crete and its civilization had in fact been dealt a death blow by the eruption; he supported this thesis by reference to "three fundamental facts" : (1) there was pumice from Thera in the destruction level at Amnisos; (2) the orthostates of one building at Amnisos

Black Sea

lonlan Sea

_~

Aegean Sea

RHODES

'CRETE.

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were hurled outwards in a manner suggestive of a tidal wave; and (3) the destruction of Amnisos coincided with a general destruction throughout the island 46 Much of Marinatos' long life was then devoted to demonstrating the truth of his thesis. Important scientific confirmation first came in 1965 with a paper by D. Ninkovich and B. C. Heezen entitled simply "Santorini Tephra."48 Ninkovich and Heezen proved that the central and eastern portions of Crete were in the path of the tephra fallout from the eruption; deep-sea cores provided graphic evidence of large amounts of ash fall over some 200,000 square kilometres of the Aegean. The actual depth of the ash fall on central and eastern Crete, however, was difficult to determine, since no Theran ash apparently still existed on the soil of twentieth-century Crete. The damage done to Crete by ash fall, however, would have been directly proportional to the amount of ash deposited. A light dusting could in fact be beneficial, improving the richness of the soil; on the other hand, a deposit of c. 20 centimetres could render the soil useless for decades. Consequently, it is vital to attempt to estimate how much ash covered the heavily settled central and eastern portions of Crete. A deep-sea core taken 20 kilometres south of central Crete contained a 4-centimetre thick layer of Theran ash; another core, taken some 35 kilometres south of eastern Crete, revealed a layer of the same thickness. Studies of ash falls in the past have indicated that, for every 1 centimetre on the seabed, there tend to be 5 centimetres on adjacent land. "We have therefore to accept the general likelihood that the original depth on the south coast of Crete was at least 20 centimetres, and it is to be expected that the depth was greater in the centre and still greater in the north of the areas affected."47 If 20 centimetres of ash did indeed blanket a large part of Crete, it is likely that crops then in the fields would have been destroyed and land rendered unworkable for decades; both men and animals would have been in danger of starvation, and thousands could have died, as clearly happened at Tambora in 1815. A mass migration to western Crete, or to other parts of the Aegean, might have ensued, leaving the old centres of power abandoned. If ash damage on Crete is thus likely, tsunami damage is also probable. Tsunamis generated by the collapse of Thera would have struck the north coast of Crete within an hour.48 The damage inflicted, however, would to a large extent depend on the height of the wave as it struck the coast, and on this point estimates have ranged from a low of 6 metres to a high of 200 metres. Even if we take the low estimate, the coastal areas of northern Crete, including impor-

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tant harbours, would have been inundated and badly damaged, if not destroyed. This is what seems to have happened not only at Amnisos, but also at Pseira where pieces of broken objects were found scattered widely about the ruined houses; a famous example is furnished by remnants of a single lamp which were recovered from two separate houses about 3o metres apart.40 This type of destruction is appropriate to wave action. The obvious point must be made, however, that tsunamis could not have destroyed such inland power centres as Knossos or Phaestos. Thus it is unlikely that tsunamis alone would have permanently broken the back of the Minoan civilization. In one respect, nonetheless, tsunamis on the north coast could have had a serious effect on the Minoans' ability to function as a political power: given the posidon of Knossos in the northern portion of the island, it seems probable that much, if not most, of the Minoan fleet would have been stationed in harbours along the north coast, perhaps near Amnisos; a strike by tsunamis would wipe out both these harbours and these ships alike, thus endangering the Minoans' control of the seas. Without that control, the Minoan realm would become immediately vulnerable to its more aggressive neighbours. It is also likely that Crete, always prone to tectonic earthquakes, experienced such shocks in connection with the eruption of Thera. The case for earthquake damage has been well stated by D. L. Page: We know ... that the eruption which destroyed the Santorini settlements was preceded by an earthquake.... We know too that the great eruption of Santorini in [A.D.] 165o was preceded for a year by earthquakes of exceptional violence; one of these, two weeks before the volcanic climax, is said to have affected every island in the Aegean. The eruption of Santorini in 1926 was followed by an earthquake which destroyed fifty houses in Heraclion, damaged three hundred, and wrecked some of the neighboring villages.00 Moreover, as we have already seen, earthquakes do tend to be associated with the Plinian type of eruption experienced by Thera. If Crete was struck by an earthquake at the time of the Theran catastrophe, one further consequence would have been the occurrence of fires. Not only did Minoan civilization in general depend on oil lamps and open hearths, but also huge storage jars of oil were kept in all major centres, making fire an ever-present danger. This danger would especially increase during and after the Theran eruption, since the blockage of the sun by ejecta would have resulted in total dark-

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ness in the southern Aegean area.51 To combat the darkness, more lamps would have been lit, and more fires would have burned throughout Crete; an earthquake could easily have caused major conflagrations to break out. As Sir Arthur Evans himself once observed, on Crete "the ruin that an earthquake has wrought has been followed at times by a wide conflagration."52 Other possible effects of the Theran eruption on Crete include loud booming noises heard all over the island, severe rains and thunderstorms, and perhaps even tornadoes. With regard to the noise of the explosion, Ninkovich and Heezen believed that the sound would have been audible at least in the area enclosed by Gibraltar in the west, Scandinavia in the north, the Arabian Sea in the east, and central Africa in the south.5a Some of the booms might even have been strong enough to cause physical damage at a considerable distance from Thera. Heavy rains and thunderstorms, complete with electrical displays, have been postulated by Vitaliano on the grounds that "the ash particles in the atmosphere ... would act as condensation nuclei ( `cloud seeding') for water vapor.ib4 On the basis of the occurrence of tornadoes after the explosion of Tambora in 1815, P. Hedervåri argues for a similar, but perhaps more violent, phenomenon at the time of Thera's explosion.65 It is not clear, however, whether any such tornadoes would have hit Crete, and, if so, with what intensity. When we turn to Crete in the LMI period, we find that there is indeed evidence of a widespread level of simultaneous destruction on the island which could well be associated with the events on Thera. All the major centres of eastern and central Crete suddenly went down: the palaces of Zakros, Phaestos, and Mallia; whole towns at Gournia, Arkhanes, Pseira, Palaekastro, Mitropolis, and Mochlos; elaborate villas at Amnisos, Tylissos, Nirou Khani, and Sklavokampo. Even the great palace at Knossos suffered serious damage, although it recovered from the blow. Other centres, however, were never again reoccupied completely, including Phaestos, Mallia, and Zakros. Except for Marinatos, most ancient historians in the first half of the twentieth century believed that an invasion had caused this massive destruction; the culprits were supposed to be the warlike Mycenaeans of the Greek mainland. This theory became especially popular in the 195os, when Linear B, the script used on clay tablets found at Knossos, was deciphered and revealed to be an early form of Greek. This proved convincingly that Mycenaean Greeks had indeed been domiciled at Knossos before its final destruction. At the other palace sites, however, no Linear B tablets were found, leading scholars to suggest that the Mycenaeans, after destroying Mallia, Zakros, and

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Phaestos, retreated to Knossos, where they then set up their official headquarters on Crete. Although they are now being challenged by scholars adhering to a volcanic destruction of Minoan Crete, these "invasion proponents" are still vociferous and usually base their opinion on an apparent chronological problem well stated by Sinclair Hood : A more serious difficulty in the way of attributing this horizon of fire-destruction on Crete to the eruption of Thera only came to be appreciated after the end of the Second World War. For with new excavations in Crete it became increasingly clear that this horizon of destruction was in fact a good deal later in time than the destruction of the settlements on Thera. The settlements on Thera were evidently overwhelmed during the period known as Late Minoan IA, c. 1500 B.e., or shortly before then, while the horizon of destruction in Crete was assignable to Stage B of Late Minoan I, some twenty-five to fifty years or more later.58 Clearly, if the Theran eruption took place in c. 1500 B.C., it could not have been responsible for a general destruction of Crete in c. 145o B.C. It must be remembered, however, that this postulated time gap is based on pottery styles ( the Theran pottery being classified as LMIA, the Cretan as LMIB), not on any absolute chronological data. The invasion proponents also point to Knossos as a "flaw" in the volcanic destruction theory: if, they say, the eruption on Thera was responsible for the ruin of Crete, how did Knossos alone escape and carry on into the LMII period? They point out that Knossos is located in one of the most earthquake-prone areas of Crete; yet it survived, while Phaestos, far to the south, was destroyed. In their eyes, it is possible to explain this anomaly only by having Mycenaean invaders purposely spare Knossos, while eliminating opposition to their rule by destroying all other major Minoan centres. These scholars accordingly downplay the effect of the Theran catastrophe on Crete. The eruption becomes a temporary inconvenience for Crete, and Minoan influence in the Aegean is in fact said to peak in the period immediately after the eruption.67 Their chronology, then, records a 1500 B.c. eruption, followed by a fifty-year period of prosperity for Crete, followed by a 1450 B.C. Mycenaean invasion of the island. Even aside from the fact that modern geological studies have shown that the eruption of Thera could never be classified as a mere

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"inconvenience" for Crete (especially in regard to the certain ash fall over most of the island) , the invasion theory has serious flaws. The recent excavation of the palace at Zakros has in fact presented a major impediment to the theory: it is clear that Zakros was never plundered, a fact which is difficult to explain if the palace fell under the assault of Mycenaean invaders. Also, there were none of the finds commonly associated with war, such as weapons or human bones. At least at Zakros, then, a natural catastrophe seems a much more likely explanation of events. Moreover, there is a passage in Herodotus which clearly indicates that a migration of Greeks to Crete took place after a catastrophe had befallen the island : "The Praesians say that men of various nations now [that is, after the death of Minos] flocked to Crete, which was stripped of its inhabitants; but none came in such numbers as the Grecians" (7.171, Rawlinson translation) . Herodotus then states that three generations elapsed between the death of Minos and the Trojan War. Since the latter event has been dated to c. 130o B.c., the death of Minos, and the subsequent arrival of the Greeks, would have occurred c. I400 B.c., a date not far from that of the eruption of Thera. In the end, the invasion theory will stand or fall by the alleged fifty-year time gap between the destruction on Thera and that on Crete. If that gap can be explained, or eliminated, the case for the volcanic destruction of Crete will be strengthened. Those who adhere to the theory of a volcanic destruction often try to bridge the time gap by postulating a two-phased eruption on Thera. According to this view, the first phase of the eruption took place in 150o B.C. and featured the initial earthquake and the first ejection of pumice on Thera; this phase resulted in the destruction of Akrotiri. The second, and more violent, phase came c. 1450 B.C., when the volcano ejected massive amounts of ash and then collapsed to form the caldera; this phase resulted in the destruction of Minoan Crete by ash fall and tsunamis. Geologists who have examined the ash layers on Thera, however, do not believe that any lengthy period elapsed between the deposition of the layers, but rather they believe that all the tephra was deposited within a very short time: "The eruption ... took the form of a series of explosions that were essentially closely spaced in time and not separated by an interval that permitted erosion to occur."68 As a result, a variation on the two-phased theory has recently arisen which separates the eruptive process into a 1500 B.C. tephra explosion which destroyed Akrotiri, and a 1450 B.C. collapse of the magma chamber which brought ruin to the rest of the Aegean." Once again,

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however, geologists do not regard this as being probable: Ninkovich and Hays argue that the collapse of the volcano to form the caldera took place immediately after the climax of the eruption; Vitaliano points to Krakatoa and its immediate collapse as being the model for Thera.80 In the case of Thera, then, we seem to be dealing with one continuous volcanic event of short duration. The time gap must accordingly be bridged without the help of any two-phased eruption hypothesis. What follows is an attempt to do so without doing violence to either the geological or the archaeological evidence. First, it is clear that the palace at Knossos did not escape damage at the time when other Minoan centres were being destroyed. As Hood notes, LMIB pottery found in the so-called Court of the Stone Spout at Knossos suggests "damage or rebuilding" in that area in LMIB; moreover, the South House adjoining the palace was destroyed in LMIB and "never afterwards rebuilt"; finally, a house beside the Royal Road leading to Knossos was destroyed by fire during LMIB.81 While the damage might not have been as severe at Knossos as elsewhere, Knossos did in fact participate in the general catastrophe of LMIB. This catastrophe took place c. 145o B.C., as most authorities claim, and followed immediately the eruption of Thera. Thus the 1500 B.c. date for the eruption of Thera must be rejected. Given the already described overlapping in pottery styles between LMIA and LMIB, this rejection is not unreasonable; the floral designs common on Theran vessels also appeared on LMIB vessels from Crete, and the Marine style was mainly a local and short-lived phenomenon within LMIB. Indeed, the excavations at Zakros again come to our aid, for there floral and marine ceramics appeared together in the LMIB destruction level.ß2 Finally, as already noted, some marine motifs do in fact appear on Theran ware. As the excavations on Thera continue, more such ware may well be found, and the possibility should also be borne in mind that the citizens of Akrotiri, in their flight from the volcano, took with them not only their metallic treasures, but also their rare and beautiful Marine style pottery.88 Thus, the alleged fifty-year gap between the destruction on Thera and that on Crete could turn out to be an illusion. Minoan Crete was totally incapacitated by a combination of ash fall, tsunamis, earthquake, and other aftereffects of the Theran explosion. Her soil was rendered unworkable, her water supplies undrinkable; starvation threatened men and animals alike; her fleet was wiped out, stopping her trade and making her vulnerable to attack; the palatial centres were all damaged, and government fell into chaos.

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These events must have made a great impression on two peoples in the Aegean area : the Mycenaeans and the Egyptians. For the aggressive Mycenaeans, the eruption of Thera was a godsend. With Crete badly shaken and incapable of defending herself, the Mycenaeans advanced on the island to fill the power vacuum and to continue their own expansion. Near the northern coast, where they landed, stood damaged Knossos; perhaps after brief resistance, the Mycenaeans took the palace, then repaired it to serve as their administrative centre. The other Minoan centres were allowed to remain in ruins. If the Mycenaeans were active opportunists after the Theran catastrophe, the Egyptians were passive observers. In an excellent chapter on the effects of the Theran eruption on Egypt, Vitaliano writes that "Egypt, roughly five hundred miles from Santorin and right in the path of the prevailing northwesterly winds, could hardly have escaped experiencing a series of awe-inspiring manifestations."a4 These manifestations would have included days of darkness, thundering noise and shock waves, and perhaps even tsunamis on the north coast, phenomena which may well be referred to in the Hermitage papyrus (in Leningrad) and the Ipuwer papyrus (in Leiden) , both of which speak of darkness and ruin upon the land of Egypt. It has even been argued that the Old Testament records phenomena from the Theran explosion in its tale of the plagues of Egypt and in its account of the Hebrew Exodus.85 Indeed, the plague of darkness is perfectly explicable as a result of events on Thera : "And there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days" (Exodus i o : 22) . As for the miraculous parting of the waters, which allowed the Hebrews to escape Pharaoh, the action of a tsunami hitting the coast of Egypt would account nicely for what happened : the Hebrews crossed over during the withdrawal of water which commonly precedes a tsunami strike; the Egyptians, following behind, were hit by the wave and drowned. When the eruption was all over and life in Egypt began to return to normal, the Egyptians must have noticed certain changes in the world of the Aegean. They would have heard of the "disappearance" of an island to the northwest; they would have wondered at the sudden "disappearance" of Minoan traders from their shores, in whose place, inexplicably, Mycenaean Greeks now stood. As a result, it is possible that a tale about a lost island arose, a tale that would eventually be brought to the attention of Solon.

The Plain of Messara, Crete: A View from the Palace at Phaestos

Syracuse: A View from the Epipolae Heights

8

The Excavations on Thera THE FIRST INVESTIGATIONS

That the island of Thera lost most of its landmass in a Bronze Age eruption is a certain geological fact. Unlike Atlantis, Thera did not entirely disappear beneath the waves, but, like Plato's island, Thera experienced a total cessation of human habitation : Therans became as extinct a species as Atlanteans. It was not until hundreds of years after the eruption that adventurous settlers once more set foot on Theran soil. Did Thera, then, provide the historical core around which the Atlantis legend grew? The destruction caused by the Bronze Age eruption is not sufficient proof that Thera itself was the source of Atlantis. As described by Plato, Atlantis was the home of a powerful and sophisticated civilization; Thera, if it is to be identified with Atlantis, ought to have borne a similar civilization before its destruction. In this respect archaeological investigations on Thera have an important role to play in any careful evaluation of the Minoan hypothesis. It was not until the late nineteenth century that archaeologists began to suspect that the island of Thera had played an important role in Aegean prehistory. The event which first brought scientific attention to the island was the rather violent eruption of 1866. Until that year Thera had been valued only as an abundant source of tephra, which was used to make cement for the Suez Canal. Although the quarrying of tephra had revealed what appeared to be ancient walls on the island of Therasia, no archaeologists had been drawn to the site for further investigation.' The eruption of 1866, however, won for Thera the immediate attention of the scientific world, and, perhaps ironically, it was geol-

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ogists, rather than archaeologists, who first sensed the significance of the ancient remains found on the southern coast of Therasia. The major figure in this drama was the French geologist Ferdinand Fouque. Arriving on Thera not long after the eruption, Fouque inspected some walls and pottery fragments previously unearthed and was impressed enough to undertake excavations of his own. Despite the fact that he was not an archaeologist by training, Fouque successfully directed the first scientific archaeological excavations on Thera, uncovering a pillar crypt on Therasia in 1867. Fouque's finds on Therasia encouraged him to seek other potential excavation sites, and his search soon led him to the area of Akrotiri on the southwestern tip of Thera proper. There, centuries of winter erosion had stripped much of the tephra shroud away, and a tantalizing glimpse of ancient walls was offered. Although he was not able to conduct a full-fledged excavation on the site, Fouque did manage to collect a large amount of pottery sherds. The fruit of Fouque's ground-breaking labours on Thera came in 1879 with the publication of his now-classic work, Santorin et ses eruptions. In 187o, mainly as a result of Fouque's excavations, two French archaeologists decided to visit the island. H. Mamet and H. Gorceix concentrated their attention on the Akrotiri area, excavating an impressive house decorated with frescoes and uncovering still more pottery fragments. They also found two more prehistoric houses in the area, one of which had walls which were abruptly broken off at the rim of the caldera. Mamet eventually described his work in De Insula Thera, published in 1874. For some reason which is not yet entirely clear, archaeological exploration on Thera then came to a halt for over twenty years. When it did resume, in 1896, the focus of attention was not the prehistoric remains, but rather the historical Greek remains at ancient Thera on Mesa Vouno. There F. Hiller von Gaertringen directed an extensive excavation which effectively uncovered what had been the major settlement on Thera in the historical period.' Hiller von Gaertringen's excavations, however, did have a peripheral effect on the investigation of Bronze Age Thera, for another German archaeologist, R. Zahn, followed his progress with interest and decided to do some excavating himself. Zahn chose the valley of Potamos, just east of Akrotiri, as the site of his work in 1899. Unfortunately, Zahn never published a full report of his excavation, most likely because his finds were few and seemed insignificant.' After Zahn's abortive efforts, there were no further archaeological investigations on Thera until 1967. To understand the unusually slow pace of these excavations of

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prehistoric sites on Thera, it is necessary to keep in mind the ignorance in which these early excavators were working. While they certainly realized the great antiquity of their finds, they had no idea that these ancient remains were an integral part of a sophisticated Bronze Age culture eventually known as Minoan. Their finds, impressive as they were, remained essentially "unattached": who the prehistoric inhabitants of Thera were, where they came from, when they flourished, all these were questions with no apparent answers. With no context in which to fit their finds, it is not surprising that the early excavators on Thera did not long persist in their labours. That context was at last supplied in 1900 by Sir Arthur Evans' discoveries at Knossos and by the Italian Archaeological School's discovery of the palace at Phaestos in the plain of Messara in southern Crete. It soon became clear that these two impressive palatial complexes had been the focal points of an advanced Minoan civilization that had flourished on Crete in the Bronze Age. As excavations in the Aegean in general and on Crete in particular continued, archaeologists realized that the Minoans had not confined their influence to Crete itself : other areas of the Aegean, such as Melos and Rhodes,' also showed clear traces of a Minoan presence. That the earlier discoveries on Thera could likewise be related to the Minoan world quickly became apparent. Nonetheless, this realization did not immediately lead to resumed excavations on Thera. So splendid were the finds on Crete that other potential sites were ignored : Crete was to be the focal point of Aegean archaeology for decades, and so rich were the excavations on that island that no archaeologist could be blamed for concentrating attention there. THE CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS

Ironically, it was to be an excavation on Crete that would lead to resumed study of Thera. Spyridon Marinatos' unexpected discovery of pumice in the ruins at Amnisos in 1932 led to his theory that the fall of Minoan Crete was due, not to human hands, but to the devastating eruption of Thera. This theory, when published in full in 1939, met with little acceptance,' and it was clear to Marinatos that new excavations were needed on Thera itself to clarify the picture. The Second World War and subsequent turmoil in Greece, unfortunately, prevented Marinatos from undertaking such excavations until the 196os. In 1962 Marinatos at last arrived on Thera to begin some preparatory field surveys. Although he initially concentrated his attention on Therasia, Marinatos eventually decided to work at Akrotiri: not only had impressive remains already been recorded in

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that area, but also continuing winter erosion had made the site unusually accessible to excavation by removing much of the tephra layer. In 1967 Marinatos dug his first trench at Akrotiri. Success was immediate: in the words of Marinatos himself, "After a few hours, the first loose stones appeared. These were quickly followed by fairly recognizable walls. Fragments of polychrome jars and other sherds of local pottery came to light, while a deep goblet (tumbler) and a little stone lamp seemed to be in situ. One sherd was genuine Late Minoan Ia pottery imported from Crete."° Indeed, as each new trench was opened, more and more finds were brought to light, including a well-preserved storage area filled wth jars, some of which had been elaborately decorated. By the end of the first season in 1967, it was clear to Marinatos that he had come across an extensive settlement dating to the Bronze Age and culturally connected to Minoan Crete. This settlement, characterized by houses of rubble or ashlar masonry with upper storeys of mud brick and with interposed wooden beams, seemed to have been badly damaged by one or more earthquakes before its engulfment by tephra.7 The 1967 excavation, successful as it was, was only a presage of as the areas excavated the previous greater things to come. In 1968, season were further cleared and protected by a roofed shelter, Marinatos recovered some of the most beautiful pottery yet noted: especially impressive were two kymbes, or cooking vessels, one decorated with leaping dolphins, the other with flying swallows; the swallow motif also appeared on a polychrome ewer which the archaeologists painstakingly pieced together from numerous sherds. Nonetheless, the great amount of pottery unearthed was not the highlight of the 1968 season; as Marinatos wrote at the time, "The most encouraging thing in the whole excavation is the discovery of wall paintings which hold out great promise."8 Fresco painting was a well-known hallmark of Minoan Crete and her outposts; the possibility that, at Thera, major examples of Minoan (or, at least, Minoan-influenced) frescoes were awaiting discovery invested the excavations with even greater importance. The fragments found in 1968 were modest enough: there were pieces of landscape with palm trees and other plants, heads of monkeys, and, most unexpectedly, a human head displaying definite negroid features. This latter fragment became known as "The African" and was the first indication of Theran relations with that great southern continent. Encouraged by these discoveries, Marinatos concluded his report on the 1968 season with the remark that "happily we have sure indications that frescoes are still hidden in several places of the excavated area."s The discoveries of 1969 showed that Marinatos' expectations were

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fully justified: more fragments of wall paintings came to light, and one room (called B6 by the excavators) even bore a group of lifesize blue monkeys on two of its walls. At least seven monkeys appear to be climbing over a rocky landscape. The exact meaning of this fresco was far from clear in 1969, but it was undeniable that Akrotiri would prove to be a prolific source of Bronze Age painting. The 1969 season also saw an extension of the area under excavation, and, as more buildings were cleared, Marinatos was better able to reconstruct what had happened at Akrotiri. He concluded that "not much time elapsed between the quake and the awakening of the volcano. Possibly two to three years, possibly one year or some months only."10 His original belief that twenty to twenty-five years had elapsed between earthquake and eruption was thus retracted. In addition, it was now certain that the Bronze Age settlement at Akrotiri had not been built on virgin soil: "In one place we did find traces of Middle Cycladic period. Where we had been able to reach the original surface of the pre-explosion island, traces of EC [Early Cycladic] and even of Chalcolithic period came to light."11 By 197o worldwide attention was being focused on the discovery of a "Bronze Age Pompeii" at Akrotiri. As if not to disappoint its audience, Akrotiri yielded its most impressive finds to date: the frescoes of the Antelopes, the Boxing Children, and the Lilies. The first two were found in a single room (BI) not far from the find-site of the Monkeys fresco. On the southern wall of this room were depicted two children in the act of boxing playfully; their young bodies are painted in the red tone normally reserved for males in Minoan art, and their heads appear to be covered with a blue "cap" from which long braids hang down. Of special note are the gloves worn by the children on their right hands, for this is the oldest known artistic representation of those implements. Once again, however, a precise understanding of the fresco is difficult to attain : "The first impression one gets is that of two young princely brothers. But we cannot exclude the possibility of them representing divine beings."12 On the remaining walls of Bi was depicted a group of at least five African antelopes of the type known as Oryx beissa. The northern and western walls each bore two of these animals, and the eastern wall apparently featured a lone specimen.13 An unusual aspect of this painting is that all five antelopes are drawn only in outline, except for their heads, which are given a few added details in red. The questions raised by this fresco are many : "We wonder whether we have before us a foreign artistic motif ( this antelope is peculiar to all periods of Egyptian art) or if rather the painter painted them with thorough knowledge of their natural life. Are they imported

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animals which lived free on the island? ... Or have we here survivals of the early quaternary fauna of the Aegean?"14 Nevertheless, it is likely that the frescoes of the Antelopes and the Boxing Children had some kind of religious significance: the excavation of Br showed beyond doubt that it had served as a shrine complete with repositories for sacred vessels; indeed, the vessels found included tables of offerings, goblets, and ewers appropriate to sacred functions. That the wall paintings within the shrine would be secular in nature is thus improbable. The recovery of these two frescoes (which may in fact be a single composition, the thematic unity of which is not yet understood) once more directed scholarly attention southwards to Africa: the antelopes were undeniably associated with East Africa, while the hairstyle of the Boxing Children has been compared with that of African children.16 Given the previously discovered "African" fresco, and the appearance of blue monkeys in the fresco of B6, it seemed possible that Thera had not only been in close contact with Africa, but had also been noticeably influenced by African culture. The efforts of the 197o season certainly would have been considered successful had these been the only frescoes found. An even more impressive painting, however, came to light: the Lilies fresco (also known as the Spring fresco) from room 6, 2. The recovery of this masterpiece was almost accidental: The nature of the excavation obliged us for facility's sake, during the removal of the accumulated pumice and ashes, to extend our work to the space connected on the S.E. to the "polythyron" A 1. That is why we named the small room discovered here L 2. Its actual dimensions are about 2.3o X 2.5o m. It has exceptionally thick walls on every side and especially to the North (where the wall is double). Yet, nothing foretold the surprises and the treasures this room was to yield.16 The treasures included over zoo vessels of various sizes and shapes, a mosaic floor, and a bed, which, though its original wooden structure had long since decayed and disappeared, could be restored by pouring gypsum into the hole remaining in the tephra. Yet none of these could compare with the virtually intact fresco which had covered three walls of the room. Dominating the painting are oddly shaped rocks of black, green, yellow, and red hues; they seem to be volcanic rocks, and thus the scene is most likely Thera itself. Growing everywhere on the rocks are red lilies in bunches of three; "their golden-yellow stems are

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slightly curved as if bowing under the vivid Aegean breeze."'" The final touch is provided by swallows, in pairs or alone, gracefully flying above the landscape. The intention of the unknown artist was clearly to capture the moment of spring's rebirth on earth. The death which is winter had at last come to an end, and lilies, the sign of spring, have sprouted; to celebrate renewed life, swallows are preparing to mate. It is a unified and complex composition, easily comparable with the best of the Minoan frescoes from Crete. The 1971 season at Akrotiri understandably opened with high expectations; no one now doubted the artistic richness of the settlement, a sign, most likely, of its economic health. Once again, the site did not disappoint its excavators: in addition to more high-quality pottery (indeed, one room, A 16, contained over 30o vases), two more major fresco locations were discovered. The first was the House of the Ladies, so-called from the subject matter of its paintings; the second was the West House, an imposing structure of at least two storeys adjacent to a triangular-shaped plaza. The fresco of the House of the Ladies was found in an upper-storey room approximately 4.3o X 2.40 metres. Although the composition was not entirely intact, its general outline was clear: on the western wall of the room were depicted groups of sea daffodils of supernatural size; this motif continued onto the western part of the room's southern wall. In all, at least four groups of these flowers were portrayed, each group having three daffodils. The eastern portion of the southern wall bore a larger-than-lifesize figure of a lady in Minoan dress; her long hair is draped over her shoulders, and she moves to her right. Most striking is her face: in the words of Marinatos, "This face is surprisingly noble; the lips are half-open as if the lady was reciting or praying. Her lips and cheeks are discreetly painted red. The dignity and a certain melancholy expression on the face and in the whole movement of this figure is amazing."18 The northern wall of the room seems to have borne two more figures of ladies. The better-preserved figure shows a woman quite similar in appearance to the one on the southern wall; this woman, however, is bending over, and her breasts hang loosely from her openbodiced jacket. She appears to be placing her hands upon the back of the second lady, whose body, unfortunately, is poorly preserved. Indeed, the poor state of this portion of the fresco does not allow any clear interpretation of its meaning. The frescoes found in the West House in 1971 were described by Marinatos as "equally interesting, though technically inferior."19 As

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later events were to show, it would be the frescoes of the West House which would raise the most serious historical questions yet encountered. At the time the finds seemed modest enough. In excavating the West House, Marinatos began to come across small fragments of what appeared to be miniature frescoes; one piece, larger than the rest, depicted five men seated in what looked like a boat. The excavators, however, had to wait for the next season's work to recover the complete composition. Also found was a larger fresco piece, 1.83 metres high and o.101 metres broad. Named the "Banner," this fresco was described as "consisting of three wooden sticks (yellow colour) ending in a combination of the Egyptian lily with the Egyptian waz-sign. The latter stands between a double decorative scroll very usual in LM period"; the body of the banner itself was described as displaying "a horizontal band with spirals, two festoons bearing waz symbols among carnelian and lapis-lazuli beads," and ending "in a kind of screen made of oxhide."20 What this very elaborate item was eluded the excavators, although Marinatos tentatively assigned a religious significance to it. The premier find of the West House in 1971, however, was a small fresco (15o X 35 centimetres) which seemed to depict a young priestess in the act of making a sacred offering. The circumstances of its recovery were quite unusual: "neither walls nor mud bricks were found, just this fragile, thin plaster, buried in the fine ashes and admirably preserved as if by a miracle."21 Dressed in a long robe, the priestess held a metal vase which contained, on the interpretation of Marinatos, a sacred cake, over which she was sprinkling crocus. Her face reminded the excavators of the "African" fresco found in 1868: her thick lips and the large ring hanging from her ear again looked towards Africa. Moreover, her hairstyle was akin to that seen on the Boxing Children fresco: isolated braids of hair against a bluish "cap" which could well, as Marinatos later suggested, represent a shaved skull. At the end of the 1971 season, it was clear that the West House had to be the main focus of attention in 1972. That season indeed saw not only the further clearing of this structure, but also additional work on the House of the Ladies and a major extension of the area under excavation. As a result the outlines of four large buildings of ashlar masonry ( called xestai) became better defined; one of these, xeste 2, had a western wall well over 20 metres long. Nonetheless, it was the West House which provided the major finds of the season. As clearance of the upper storey progressed, it was discovered that three rooms and a staircase had constituted the area.

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The central room (numbered 3) featured an exceptionally wide window; the ruinous condition of this room, however, hindered thorough excavation. Attention was focused instead upon rooms 4 and 5, to the west of room 3. Room 5 featured a series of four windows on both its north and its west walls, a floor of schist slabs, cupboards and shelves, and numerous vases. Interesting as these were, they seemed pale in comparison with the frescoes discovered. Two distinct finds were made: frescoes of two youthful fishermen, one from the northeast corner of the room, the other from the southwest corner; and a miniature frieze which apparently ran around all four walls of the room. Several fragments of this latter work had already come to light in the previous season. The first of the fishermen found was virtually intact, much like the Priestess fresco recovered the previous season. It soon became apparent to Marinatos that these were not ordinary frescoes, but rather "ready-made paintings ... embedded, it seems, to the walls, if not literally hung. The present work slipped and fell gently upon the slabs of the floor."22 That this style of "hung" frescoes existed at Akrotiri thus bodes well for future discoveries of complete paintings. Approximately two-thirds life-size, the two fishermen are unique in being the first totally nude adult figures known in Minoan painting. The better-preserved first fisherman moves to his right while holding a string of fish (mackerel) in each hand; his hair is styled in the same manner as that of the Boxing Children, complete with a blue cap, and it was at this point that Marinatos postulated that these Therans' heads were shaved, but for a few locks of hair: "I have come to this conclusion after several other facts persuaded me that we have before us, in Thera, close connections with Libya.... this fashion has always been of Libyan origin and ... even today it survives in the Sahara and in North Africa generally."23 The second fisherman, in a different pose, moves to his left, holding one string of fish in his hands. Although most of his torso is missing, "part of the youth's face with the eye and the lock over the forehead are sufficiently preserved to show that this work was of equal, if not superior, workmanship to the first fisherman."24 The other fresco found in room 5 was a much more elaborate composition. Now generally known as the Expedition fresco, it may have been well over i i metres in length originally, although only about 7 metres survive today; its height seems to have varied from 38 centimetres on two walls to 1 g centimetres on the third and, perhaps, the fourth.25 The extant fragments from the north wall seem to depict a high hill, which young people clad in Minoan-style garments are climbing; on the summit stand a group of tall men dressed

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in long mantles. A nearby scene from the same wall shows what has been interpreted as a sea battle and troop landing: in its lower pordon appear parts of three ships and corpses afloat on the water; the upper portion depicts a rocky shore crowned by a large building, upon which men and women seem to be standing. To the right appear goats, sheep, oxen, and their herders, as well as a line of marching soldiers, who carry long spears and large body shields. On the east wall of the room the subject matter seems quite different: a small stream is shown, the banks of which are thickly covered with shrubs; among scattered rocks are painted palm trees bowing in the wind and assorted animals (a duck, a stag, even a galloping griffin, and a pantherlike creature) . This scene continues onto the south wall, where, however, the landscape becomes less subtropical and more Mediterranean in appearance. In the upper portion of the fresco a lion is shown in pursuit of a group of stags; in the lower portion, separated by the stream, a town stands, to the lower right of which there is a large boat with five oarsmen. The townspeople appear to look in the direction towards which the boat is heading. What is depicted next is best described by Marinatos: it is "a magnificent fleet, all ships sailing to the right, escorted by a school of joyfully leaping dolphins. It is difficult to say whether the ships are just leaving the town or are simply sailing round the promontory. They advance in two parallel columns, seven ships in all, three of which are in the upper and four in the lower column."26 The destination of this fleet then appears: another town along the rocky shore. Small boats are shown in the water and seem to have left the town in order to meet the arriving vessels. In the town itself men and women are gazing at the fleet from towers and windows; the fact that at least one tower bears horns of consecration would indicate that this town is part of the Minoan world, but, strangely enough, the dress of the inhabitants appears distinctly non-Minoan. The significance of this complex fresco has been hotly debated since its recovery. While some see in it a peaceful voyage, perhaps a trading mission, others view the work as recording a military venture in the Aegean area. It has even been suggested that parts of the fresco represent Libya, and Marinatos in fact called the frieze the "Libya fresco."27 Obviously much careful study of this work is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. What is clear at present, however, is that this fresco has no rival on Thera in its ambitious composition and wealth of detail. The treasures of the West House did not end with room 5, for room 4, immediately to the south, was also richly decorated with fres-

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toes. A partition of raw brick divided the room into two compartments: room 4 proper, perhaps a bedroom, and room 4a, a bathroom. The latter compartment bore the so-called Ikria fresco, part of which had been recovered in 1971 and named the Banner. It became clear that the walls of 4a had been covered with numerous "banners" and that they actually represented cabins (ikria) on board a ship; indeed, exactly such cabins were depicted in the Expedition fresco of room 5. The ikria motif also continued into room 4 proper, leading the excavators to conclude that the owner of the West House must have been a naval officer of some sort. In 1973 the excavators' attention turned to the ashlar masonry buildings termed xestai. Physically the most impressive structures in the settlement, five xestai were by then known: xeste 1 stood in the centre block of the city, not far from the West House; xeste 2 was at the eastern edge of the excavation and had a north facade 23 metres in length; xeste 3 marked the southwestern limit of the excavation; xeste 4 similarly marked the southeastern limit; and xeste 5, newly uncovered in the course of the 1973 season, stood to the north of xeste 2. Although some preliminary work was undertaken on xestai 5 and 4, with the latter yielding a few fresco fragments, the major effort of the season was concentrated upon xest6 3 and was richly rewarded by finds there. As the clearing of xeste 3 progressed, its complexity became abundantly apparent: eleven rooms were successfully located, and there was no reason to believe that there were not many more still awaiting discovery. A monumental staircase, the largest yet found, connected the levels of the structure and was decorated with frescoes which seemed to depict a mountainous landscape. What looked very much like an anteroom with benches was discovered, which led the excavators to postulate that the xeste may have been a public building of some sort. "This view is supported by the fact that signs of private habitation were scarce. Only a small room (no. 6) was found containing two storage-jars and very few other vessels."28 Once again, however, it was the fresco finds which most impressed the excavators. Xest6 3, in fact, appears to have been richly decorated, and almost every area excavated yielded fragments of various sizes. The subjects of the frescoes varied : one seems to depict a man hunting; another shows blue monkeys apparently engaged in human activities ( for example, playing a musical instrument) and accompanied by swallows tending their nests; another features a motif of spirals and rosettes; while another seems to have portrayed various aquatic birds. Unfortunately most of the fresco work was in a poor state of pre-

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nervation. This was especially true in the case of room 3 : "The tedious task of detecting, isolating and extracting fresco fragments was continued for weeks on end, until hundreds of pieces filled our trays. Quite often the fragments measured no more than 2 or even I cm in diameter.... For a whole month it was impossible to surmise anything about the composition of the fresco."29 Gradually a few items were clearly identified: grass, a crocus, a human eye, bits of feminine dress, and even a woman's arm and nose. Thus, painstakingly, was pieced together what is now known as the fresco of The Gathering of Crocus. This composition, roughly measuring I oo square metres, seems to have covered all four walls of the room and depicted at least seven women in a meadowlike landscape. Most of the figures are engaged in gathering crocus in baskets; they are richly attired in skirts and jackets and wear a large amount of jewellery. Who they represent remains a puzzle : is one a goddess and the others her attending nymphs, or are they all human, perhaps a queen and her ladies-in-waiting? "At all events, the representation shows a festive celebration, and more precisely a festival where women are the only participants."30 By the end of the 1973 season, the excavation at Akrotiri seemed to be blessed by fate: every year new finds surpassed those of the year before; no season went without extraordinary discoveries. In 1 974, however, a severe setback came to the excavation with the accidental death of Spyridon Marinatos at the site. With tragic swiftness, the driving force behind the project was gone, and the momentum of the excavation abruptly halted. The years since Marinatos' death have marked a relatively quiet time for Akrotiri. Excavation continues, especially at the southern extremity of the site, but major extensions of the excavated area have not been made. Instead, those structures already uncovered by 1 974 are being further studied, and their finds classified. It is, in brief, a time of stocktaking for the excavation. FROM AKROTIRI TO ATLANTIS

As a result of Marinatos' work, the basic features of the Theran settlement are already clear enough without additional excavations. First, the site of Akrotiri shows signs of human habitation as far back as the Early Cycladic period, c. 3000-2500 B.c.; a settlement seems to have existed by c. 2500 B.C., and the town which was the immediate predecessor of the Minoan Akrotiri apparently suffered earthquake destruction around 155o B.c. Thus, the city under excavation had a life span of approximately I oo years and was the last of several settlements on the site.

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The size of the Minoan city is difficult to determine. By 1974 the area of the excavation covered some 12,000 square metres, extending roughly 15o metres N-S and 8o metres E-W. No city boundary has yet come to light, and, given the fact that some ruins had been found on the inner rim of the caldera in the nineteenth century, it appears likely that Akrotiri in fact extended north a significant distance and had its northern portion swallowed up by the caldera's formation. Similarly, it seemed likely to Marinatos that the southern end of the city had been lost in the sinking of Thera's southern coast during the eruption. If this is so, then the original size of the city will never be ascertained, and what exists today will remain but a remnant of a much larger whole. It will also be impossible to estimate the population of the settlement, though at present some authorities argue that twenty to thirty thousand is not an unreasonable figure.' The excavations offer a view of a city laid out in no regular plan. Right-angle junctions are few and streets seem to wind irregularly. This lack of an overall plan is quite consonant with Minoan practice, as excavations on Crete have abundantly demonstrated. The houses of the town tended to be multi-storeyed, with three or four levels not unusual; indeed area A 3 seems to have had at least four storeys. Most commonly houses shared adjoining walls (as at Gournia in Crete), thus forming a kind of prehistoric row housing. There were, however, some freestanding buildings, such as the West House. Lower walls were generally built of rubble packed with clay and coated with plaster, although, as previously stated, some structures (xestai) featured impressive ashlar masonry in their lower levels. Upper storeys, however, were constructed of mud bricks, and all walls had wooden beams for reinforcement, a vital building procedure in any earthquake-prone area. Some walls at Akrotiri were as thick as 1.5 metres, though most were thinner. Roofs were most likely flat in typical Minoan style. They were built of branches placed upon rafters and then coated with several inches of earth. On top of this would be placed a layer of fine clay which was pressed down to form a waterproof surface. Floors were similarly of beaten earth, although a few structures revealed more elaborate flooring (for example, paving of schist slabs, or pebble inlay) . Individual rooms, like the houses themselves, were usually irregular in plan, with several being quite odd in shape. Inside a typical room it was not unusual to find traces of cupboards or wickerwork shelves. Windows were not plentiful, and those that existed varied greatly in

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size and shape; for example, while some were almost perfectly square, others were more rectangular. Wooden frames were used, and some windows even had wooden rods placed horizontally across their faces, forming slits. All in all, the city, its houses, and especially their contents provide ample proof of the wealth and sophistication of Akrotiri around 145o B.C. To state, however, that Akrotiri was a prosperous settlement of the Late Bronze Age does not set it apart from other Aegean centres of that period, nor does such a statement necessarily imply that Akrotiri had any connection with Plato's Atlantis. And yet, the fact that Thera had been the site of such an advanced settlement makes that island at least vaguely akin to Atlantis; the fact that this settlement, and perhaps others as well, met doom in a violent natural cataclysm increases the superficial resemblance. Thus it is not surprising that some Atlantists see in the excavations at Akrotiri positive proof that Thera literally was Atlantis as described by Plato. The main proponent of the theory that Thera was in fact Atlantis, complete with Plato's ancient metropolis, has been A. G. Galanopoulos, a Greek geologist. In order to arrive at this conclusion, however, Galanopoulos has been forced to reinterpret the Platonic texts: Atlantis, according to Galanopoulos, was not one island, but two, the first of which was a small round island, some 1g kilometres in diameter, which was the location of the ancient metropolis settled by Poseidon and Cleito; the second was much larger and rectangular, being the location of the royal city and its fertile plain 8` By thus dividing one island into two, Galanopoulos argues that the onceround island of Thera had actually been the original core of Atlantis, with Poseidon's acropolis on its central volcanic cone, while Crete had been the site of Atlantis' vast plain: "The Ancient Metropolis was the island of Santorin before the submergence of its central part and the plain of the Royal City was the central basin of Crete."" Galanopoulos claims to have found concrete evidence in support of his thesis in a model of Thera in the Geological Museum at Athens. In this model, which is over forty years old, Galanopoulos sees "traces of the harbours of the Ancient Metropolis and of the canal joining them with the sea.... The traces of the harbours are quite clear between Nea Kameni and the town of Phera and particularly so between Palaea and Nea Kameni, where the circular shape of the central harbour can be seen."94 Galanopoulos then proceeds to find traces of channels on the bottom of the caldera. He strengthens his "proof" with the statement that "the length of the submarine gorge which lies between Thera and Therasia would be exactly the same as the length of the channel joining the sea with the inner harbour of the Ancient Metropolis."ss

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1

Numerous problems beset this hypothesis. First, the model of Thera which is so suggestive of Atlantis to Galanopoulos was based on the British Admiralty chart of 1916. Since that time oceanography has greatly developed, and, at the same time, our understanding of the geological history of Thera has increased. Thus it is dubious that a chart of 1916 would be as accurate as modern charts, which indeed do not show traces of harbours and canals in the waters of Thera. Moreover, recent exploration within the caldera itself has turned up no such traces. In addition, the Platonic texts do not refer to Atlantis as two islands, but as one. While Plato does state that Atlantis exercised dominion over other islands, he nowhere speaks of the metropolis and royal city belonging to two separate landmasses. On the contrary, it is clear that Plato's ancient metropolis and royal city are one and the same. Finally, to see in the gorge which today separates Therasia from Thera proper the Atlantean channel which once led from the inner harbour to the sea assumes that the modern gorge accurately reflects the physical make-up of the island before the Bronze Age eruption. It is more probable, however, that the present chasm is a creation of the eruptive process itself and thus has no relation to any pre-existent channel. And so, in the end, the theory of Galanopoulos remains more imaginative than concrete. On the basis of present evidence, it seems unlikely that Thera was literally the Atlantis of Plato. The philosopher's description of the metropolis, with its walls of precious metals, temples, and encircling zones of land and water, cannot be paralleled at Akrotiri or, indeed, anywhere else on Thera. Likewise, the vast plain of Atlantis has found no counterpart on Thera. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that Thera itself shows no signs of having been an independent political power in the Aegean; rather, the island seems to have been dependent on Minoan Crete (perhaps as a colony) . But if Thera cannot be shown to be Atlantis in a literal sense, it can be seen as Atlantis in a figurative sense: the tale of an island with prosperous settlements being destroyed "by earthquake and floods" must have circulated in the eastern Mediterranean for many years after 145o B.c.; that the Egyptians would have heard such a tale is likely. Certainly the Egyptians would have noted the sudden "disappearance" of Minoan vessels and their sailors and traders just after that event. And so the seeds of the Iegend were sown. Yet the Platonic flower that grew out of these seeds is a much more complex creation. To ascertain which elements in the myth of Atlantis are "Platonic" and which are "original and prehistoric," we must next turn our attention to Minoan Crete. Here, according to

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the Minoan hypothesis, was the original Atlantis, a vague memory of which persisted into historical times.

9

Minoan Crete and Atlantis THE MAJOR OBSTACLES

Those who support the Minoan hypothesis, equating Plato's Atlantis with Bronze Age Crete, are immediately beset by several prominent facts which fail to fit the theory. First, there is the obvious problem of the Atlantic location of Atlantis; second, the time scale of Plato's island is in clear conflict with the historical time scale of Minoan Crete; and third, the physical size of Atlantis has nothing in common with the size of Crete. Recognizing that the entire Minoan hypothesis is potentially undermined by these three dissimilarities, adherents have been quick in recent years to propose ingenious explanations. The problem of location is perhaps the most crucial, for it seems difficult, at first glance, to reconcile an Atlantic with an Aegean location. Yet, as we have already seen, it is most improbable that an Atlantis ever existed in the Atlantic Ocean, and, if we are thereby forced to seek an alternative location, the Aegean may be as probable as anywhere else. Indeed, the Aegean may even be a more logical site than any other body of water, given its proximity to Egypt, where, we are told, the tale of Atlantis was preserved. It is in fact the Egyptian connection which may provide one solution to the problem of location: if one takes an Egyptian point of view, Crete would be an island to the north and west; an Egyptian referring to an "island in the west" could easily have had Crete in mind. To a Greek of the mainland, however, an "island in the west" would not naturally point to Crete, lying south of mainland Greece as it does. Thus a communication gap could have developed, with the Egyptian priest and Solon each viewing an "island in the west" differently.

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The undeniable fact that Egypt had long been in contact with Crete during the Bronze Age lends credence to this explanation. Most scholars today see Minoans of Crete in the men of "Keftiu" who appear prominently in Egyptian tomb paintings and documents of the third and second millennia B.c.1 These men of "Keftiu" seem to vanish from the Egyptian records around 1450 B.c., that is, approximately at the time of the Theran eruption. Likewise, Minoan artifacts found in Egypt and Egyptian artifacts found in Crete attest to close relations between the two peoples. Thus, from an Egyptian point of view, the major island power to the west had to be Crete. If the location of Atlantis became garbled through a communication gap as described, could the date of Plato's island also be a victim of misunderstanding? According to the Timaeus and the Gritias Atlantis flourished in approximately g600 B.c.; Minoan Crete, however, reached its cultural peak from 2000 to 1450 B.C. If Plato's date for Atlantis is correct, then Atlantis and Minoan Crete could not have been one and the same. The solution to the problem, as proposed by supporters of the Minoan hypothesis, involves recognizing a simple numerical error, on the part of either Solon or his Egyptian source.' It is claimed that the mathematical symbol for 100 was somehow mistaken for the symbol representing 1,000, and, as a result, all numbers greater than gg became magnified by a factor of 1o. A mistake of this sort could have occurred in a transcribing of Minoan or Mycenaean records into Egyptian hieroglyphics, since the Linear A and B symbol for too is o and that for 1,000 is -{)-. Or, it is possible that Solon, in transcribing Egyptian records into Greek, made the error. In either event, the original mistake became ingrained in the legend of Atlantis. If this proposal is sound, the dating of Plato's Atlantis is radically altered. The "9,00o years" before Solon become "goo," and, with Solon being placed c. 600 B.C., Atlantis is now seen to flourish around 150o B.C., that is, at precisely the time when Minoan Crete was at its height. The destruction of Atlantis is then easily tied to the cataclysmic eruption of Thera, c. 1450 B.c. In fact this adjusted date for Atlantis makes a good deal more sense than Plato's 9600 B.C. Modern historians agree : "We now know that no Greeks existed then [that is, 9600 B.c.] to perform heroic deeds nor Egyptians to write them down. The so-called `Pyramid texts', the oldest continuous texts of the Egyptians, belong to about the middle of the third millennium but concern religious formulas only. We possess historical texts of substantial length only after the 18th dynasty" (c. 1500 B.c.) .8 It is indeed clear from archaeological exploration that there was no Athens of the sort described by Plato

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as early as g600 n.e.; what settlements there then were in Greece were of the modest Neolithic type' The sophisticated civilizations of both Athens and Atlantis as recorded by Plato are accordingly much more credible as creations of the Aegean Bronze Age. If the numerical figures of the Atlantis tale became confused at some point, we can also solve the problem of the discrepancy in size between Atlantis and Crete. Atlantis, being larger than Libya and Asia Minor combined, obviously surpasses the c. 8,3oo square kilometres of Crete. It is possible that here, too, a false magnification of figures took place, transforming Atlantis into an island so large that it could no longer fit into the Mediterranean but had to be removed beyond Gibraltar. It is also possible that the size of Atlantis increased with each telling of the tale, a phenomenon of oral story-telling still observable today. If both factors were at work, we can easily account for the unusual size of the island by the time Plato wrote about it. There is, however, another explanation offered for the great size of Atlantis. According to P. B. S. Andrews, it is likely that Plato misinterpreted Solon's rough notes on Atlantis, and in a phrase actually dealing with the location of that island read "larger [AEq-wv] than Libya and Asia" instead of "midway between [wow] Libya and Asia."5 In this way Solon's accurate description of Crete-Atlantis' position in the eastern Mediterranean accidentally became transformed into a false statement of physical size. If such an explanation seems feasible, it may be wrong to lay all the blame for this error on Plato: it is quite possible that Solon misread his Egyptian source in this regard. THE MINOAN FEATURES OF ATLANTIS

Having noted the major discrepancies between Atlantis and Crete, we need to examine the numerous similarities which form the foundation of the Minoan hypothesis. In the first place, considerations of comparative size aside, both Atlantis and Crete are large islands; indeed, next to Cyprus, Crete is the largest island in the eastern Mediterranean. Of Atlantis, Plato wrote that it was the way to other islands, from which one could pass to the opposite continent; this statement well applies to Crete, situated to the south of the Cyclades, which in turn bring one to mainland Greece ( that is, the opposite continent) . In fact, again taking an Egyptian point of view, Crete could be seen as the main gateway to continental Europe. Moreover, both Crete and Atlantis were expansive maritime powers. The imperialism of Atlantis is, of course, well documented in the Timaeus and the Critias, and that of Minoan Crete is attested to by Thucydides: "The first person known to us by tradition as

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having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.'ß Indeed, we know that by 150o B.C. Minoan Crete exercised a wide dominion over the Cycladic Aegean : the islands of Melos, Keos, Delos, Kythera, Amorgos, Siphnos, as well as Thera, all show clear signs of a Minoan presence. The Cyclades, however, were not the only focal points of Minoan expansionism: there is also evidence of Minoan influence on Euboea, Skyros, Skopelos, Rhodes, Karpathos, Samos, Cyprus, southern Italy, and Sicily.' Thus modern archaeology has confirmed Thucydides' picture of an aggressive Crete in the Bronze Age. Was any of this aggression directed against mainland Greece, especially against Athens? Atlantis, after all, was engaged in an ambitious attack on Greece at the time of its demise, an attack thwarted by the extraordinary efforts of the ancient Athenians. First, it is clear that Athens was a prosperous Mycenaean settlement in the Bronze Age ;8 second, Minoan cultural and artistic influence dominated spiritually, though not physically, the early stages of Mycenaean culture ;9 third, the famous legend of Theseus tells of conflict between Athens and Crete ;1° and fourth, Linear B tablets prove that Greeks had taken control of Knossos around 1450 B.c.11 Weighing these four facts, one can conclude that there was certainly a great deal of communication between the mainland and Crete by the middle Bronze Age. The Minoans clearly influenced the development of Mycenaean culture, especially by their exportation to Greece of various artifacts;12 indeed, to a large extent, Mycenaean pottery is an imitation of Minoan ware."S That conflict would arise is, given the politics of the ancient world, almost inevitable, and the story of the Athenian hero Theseus' going to Crete to defeat the Minotaur and to end King Minos' hold on Athens may well reflect a historical Cretan-Athenian war. The victory of Athens recorded in that tale finds archaeological confirmation in the presence of Mycenaean Greeks at Knossos in 1450 B.C. Thus Crete, much like Atlantis, came into conflict with the Greek world and ultimately suffered defeat, although the Mycenaeans admittedly needed the Theran disaster to assist in their gaining firm control of the Minoan realm. Minoan Crete and Atlantis also shared several physical features. For example, one of Atlantis' most prominent areas was the fertile plain which was surrounded by mountains and was close to the sea.

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~a MEWS

THERA

2d

7. The Islands of Crete and Thera Roughly rectangular in shape (3,000 X 2,000 stades, according to Plato), this plain was sheltered on its northern side and looked towards the south. It seems more than coincidence that the island of Crete has a similar plain, that of Messara, described as "the largest, hottest and most fertile plain of the island."14 Always vital to Crete's production of food, Messara lies approximately in the middle of the island; it is enclosed by mountains and is rectangular in shape, being 55 X 37 kilometres. In fact the dimensions of Messara match those of the Atlantean plain if we decrease the size of the latter by a factor of ten: in terms of ancient Greek measurement, the Cretan plain would be roughly 300 X 200 stades. Here, too, it could be that figures in the hundreds were mistaken for those in the thousands. The similarity of Messara to the plain of Atlantis is further demonstrated by the fact that it is sheltered on its northern side by Mount Ida, the tallest mountain on Crete, and looks towards the southern coast of Crete. It follows from this comparison that mountains were a major feature common to both Atlantis and Crete. Crete in fact has several mountain ranges, varying in height from 1,540 to 2,450 metres.'5 The mountains of Atlantis, according to Plato, were celebrated for

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their number, size, and beauty and, like their Cretan counterparts, were the sites of numerous villages. Another common feature was the great abundance of timber on both islands. We are told that the canals in the plain of Atlantis served to bring wood down from the mountains to the royal city and that there was much wood of different types available. Many authorities now agree that Crete was more heavily forested in the past than it is today: "In antiquity Cretan hillsides and mountain slopes, today rocky and barren over extensive areas, were heavily forested with cypress, plane, fir, the Cretan maple and oak. Cedars are today almost extinct, but their existence in antiquity can be considered as sure."10 Indeed, some mountainous areas of modern Crete remain heavily wooded despite centuries of deforestation brought about by men and grazing animals. Atlantis and Crete were also alike in their agricultural capability. Plato tells us that Atlantis, with the aid of its irrigation system, experienced multiple harvests, generally having both a winter and a summer reaping season; the winter growth was made possible by natural rainfall, and the summer harvest came as the result of canal irrigation. The agricultural situation in Crete was quite similar: the fertile plains and valleys of Crete produced abundant supplies of grapes, olives, and grains;" winter rains made possible one harvest, and irrigation in the dry summer months enabled a second one. The excellent productivity of its land enabled Atlantis to support a large population, with many prosperous towns and villages spread over the countryside. It is clear that Crete in the Bronze Age was also a heavily populated land with many urban areas: "A true urban revolution appeared early in the second millennium B.c. and developed ... with astounding rapidity. Large towns with splendid palaces were erected."18 Archaeologists today believe that Minoan Crete supported well in excess of 3O0 settlements, a few of which, like Knossos, may have been complex cities with populations surpassing 30,000; Knossos at its peak in fact seems to have had a population of c. 1 oo,000. The total population of Crete in the Late Bronze Age may have been more than 25o,000.'ø A wide variety of minerals was another feature shared by Atlantis and Crete. According to Plato, Atlantis was rich in such mineral resources as gold, tin, silver, and the enigmatic orichalkos; it also enjoyed abundant stone quarries which provided white, black, and red rock. While it is true that Crete did not have good sources of gold, tin, or silver, the island was not lacking in other mineral resources (for example, copper) ;20 it should also be recalled that Minoan Crete was the home of skilled metalworkers who turned out

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fine products, many of which were exported to such markets as Egypt. There was widespread trade in ores during the Bronze Age, and gold from Egypt eventually found its way into both Minoan and Mycenaean finished products. Bronze work was, of course, basic to these civilizations, and Crete could have obtained additional supplies of copper from Cyprus and of tin from Asia Minor. As for stone, it is obvious that Crete is richly endowed with that resource; moreover, the phenomenon of red, black, and white stone is typical of the volcanic Thera to the north. In the political realm Atlantis and Crete also appear to have had much in common. First, the political divisions of the two seem to have been similar. Plato tells us that Atlantis had been divided into ten portions by Poseidon, with one portion going to each of the god's ten sons by Cleito. All these portions, however, were not equal, since the line of the eldest son, Atlas, was to be dominant and was to rule the others as a king over princes. In each portion a feudal type of society existed and was crucial to the fulfilment of military obligations. In Bronze Age Crete a feudal situation also existed, as is attested by the Linear B tablets; moreover, there is reason to believe that Knossos was supreme over the other palaces, with the rulers of Phaestos, Mallia, and Zakros owing allegiance to King Minos of Knossos.21 The supremacy of Knossos, in fact, may be the reason that the Mycenaean rulers of Crete placed their headquarters there and left the other palaces in ruins. Finally, that each Minoan palace controlled its surrounding area, thus dividing Crete into Atlantis-like portions, seems probable. The question of political supremacy leads to another feature shared by both Atlantis and Crete : a "royal city" built on a hill, complete with an elaborate palace and harbour installations. The opulent city and palace described by Plato finds its closest Minoan parallel in Knossos: the palace of King Minos was undeniably the largest and most elaborate of all the Cretan palatial buildings; its artistic adornment still arouses admiration in the twentieth century, and the wealth of artifacts found on the site attests to sophisticated and prosperous inhabitants.22 Like Plato's royal city, Knossos was built on a hill and had harbour installations on the nearby north coast. The palace served as the political and economic heart of the large city which surrounded it, a city which shared in the richness of palatial life, as is shown by the frescoes and other artifacts uncovered in private houses. There is, however, no true parallel at Knossos for the fertile plain which bordered Plato's royal city, and this fact has often been seen as a flaw in the Minoan hypothesis. Yet it should be remembered

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that the fertile plain of Messara was the site of the palace of Phaestos, which may have been second in importance only to Knossos in Bronze Age Crete. Phaestos too was built on a hill and had a harbour nearby, at Kommos. Thus it seems possible that Plato's royal city was to some extent a conflation of features of the two most important cities of Minoan Crete. A different kind of similarity between Atlantis and Crete can be found in the realm of religion. The Critics informs us that the Atlanteans employed bulls in their religious rituals, that these bulls were captured without the use of metal weapons (clubs and nooses were used instead) , and that the bulls were sacrificed over inscribed pillars. The parallels in Minoan Crete are striking: there, bulls and pillars both played a prominent role in cult.23 The bull, an animal commonly associated with fertility in the ancient world, appears frequently in Minoan art, usually in ritual vessels in the shape of a bull's head, in bull-jumping frescoes and reliefs, on signet rings, or in small statuettes. Most authorities now believe that ritual bull-jumping contests formed an integral part of Minoan religious celebrations, and the famous legend of the Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull, survived into the Classical Age as a memory of such celebrations. Moreover, the capture of bulls is depicted on two gold cups found at Vapheio on the mainland; these cups, clearly of Minoan origin, show men using nooses and nets to trap bulls, and no metal weapons are anywhere in sight. The importance of pillars in the Minoan religion is also well attested : not only are sacred pillars depicted in Minoan art, but they also have been found in situ in pillar crypts, such as the famous west wing shrine at Knossos.24 This complex contained "two massive pillars with the double-axe sign carved no less than twenty-nine times upon them."Y5 Thus, like the Atlantean pillars, those at Knossos were inscribed. Grooves around such pillars indicate that libations, perhaps of bull's blood, were made on the spot, as in Atlantis. Still in the sphere of religion, it is clear from the Critics that the god Poseidon was of great importance in Atlantis. It is noteworthy that the name "Poseidon" has been found on Linear B tablets from Knossos.2ß Although the precise role of Poseidon in Minoan Crete is still unknown, it is possible that he was the young male consort often depicted with the Mother Goddess in Minoan art. As a god traditionally associated with earthquakes and the sea, Poseidon would naturally have a role to play on the island of Crete, where both phenomena were well known. Flora and fauna provide another area in which Atlantis and Crete showed striking kinship. Plato states that Atlantis was rich in animal

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life of every kind, whether wild or domesticated; he even mentions the presence of elephants on the island. Except for the latter, Crete also had plentiful fauna, including domesticated animals such as sheep, swine, goats, cattle, dogs, asses, cats, monkeys, and fowl. The wild animals of Bronze Age Crete included wolves, bears, boars, foxes, wild goats, deer, rabbits, pigeons, pheasants, partridges, weasels, badgers, and even lions.27 In modern Crete, however, most of these species are now extinct. The flora of Atlantis was also profuse: Plato mentions roots, herbs, flowers, and fruits. Cretan flora "is among the most varied in Europe; it is, in fact, much richer than that of the Greek Mainland. There are 139 native plant species."28 Many of these species appear on Minoan frescoes and pottery; especially prominent in the Minoan repertoire were lilies, crocuses, poppies, and narcissuses. Other notable plants of Crete include dittany, hollyhock, thyme, and numerous other herbs. Two other points of contact between Atlantis and Minoan Crete have already been mentioned earlier and need only a brief recollection here. First, a sudden, catastrophic end came to both islands: Atlantis was overwhelmed by earthquakes and floods in a single day and night, and Minoan Crete seems to have suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Theran eruption. Indeed, that earthquakes and floods, in the form of tsunamis, devastated Crete c. 1450 B.C. now appears likely in the light of recent archaeological fieldwork. Moreover, Plato's statement that sailing in the sea around Atlantis became difficult after the disaster may well reflect the massive amount of pumice which must have floated about the Cretan Sea for a long time after the submergence of Thera, a phenomenon clearly documented at Krakatoa.29 Finally, it is obvious that both Atlantis and Minoan Crete had close connections with ancient Egypt. According to Plato, Atlantis was hostile to Egypt; Minoan Crete, however, seems to have enjoyed peaceful relations with its great neighbour to the east. "There is ample evidence of extensive trade.... A visit of Egyptian ships to Crete is mentioned in a text of the Middle Kingdom."30 It is probable that Minoan ships in turn made many visits to Egypt and that the two cultures experienced a mutually beneficial intercourse. Indeed, Minoan visitors would have become a common sight in Egypt (witness the "Keftiu" portraits of the Theban tombs), and their sudden disappearance after 145o B.C. must have caused bewilderment. THE MINOAN HYPOTHESIS IN RETROSPECT

From the preceding arguments, it would appear that the Minoan hypothesis is supported by a striking number of parallels between

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Atlantis and Crete. This is not to say that Minoan Crete matches Plato's island perfectly, for that would be patently untrue; rather, it seems that Atlantis is more closely approached by Bronze Age Crete than by any other place heretofore suggested. On the whole, the evidence is cumulative: while Atlantis may share a few features with many historical places, the sheer number of similarities it shows to Minoan Crete is extraordinary and is certainly not the result of mere coincidence. To assert, however, that Minoan Crete and Thera were the sole prototypes for Plato's Atlantis does not seem fully justified by the evidence. From Minoan Crete, Plato could easily have derived the concept of an island suddenly destroyed by a violent act of nature; memories of Minoan Crete, whether Egyptian or Greek, would have preserved some knowledge of that island's political affairs, geographical features, natural resources, and religion. Moreover, the passage of time from the Bronze Age to the Classical era could easily account for a certain amount of confusion, especially in regard to dates and sizes. And yet, there are features of Atlantis which certainly cannot reflect anything in Minoan Crete. For example, where on Crete can we find a parallel for the concentric rings of land and sea which are so basic to Plato's island? Where in the Minoan world can we find temples like that of Poseidon : a stade in length, go metres in width, covered on the outside with silver, with pediment figures of gold, and with a roof of ivory? Greek temples, of course, were alien to Minoan Crete, where simple shrines, usually located within a palace or private house, served to honour the deities. Indeed, it was only after the end of the Bronze Age that the architectural form of the Greek temple took shape. Likewise, there exists no parallel in Minoan Crete for Atlantis' stone fortification wall with its towers and gates. As Sir Arthur Evans realized during the excavation of Knossos, the Minoan palace was unusual in the ancient world precisely for its lack of massive fortifications. Moreover, many minor features of Atlantis, such as its public baths and race course, remain totally without Minoan counterparts. Thus, even if Minoan Crete was in fact the main model for Atlantis, it was nevertheless a limited model. Plato clearly supplemented features derived from Crete with features derived from other sources. In other words, his Atlantis was a conflation, an amalgam of different elements. Some of these elements must have been the total creations of Plato's imagination; others, however, probably came to him from external sources, from his own experiences as a well-travelled and educated man. It will be the task of the next chapter to search out and examine these external sources.

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The Platonic Synthesis THE SICILIAN CONNECTION

"When Plato looked to the West, all was clear as far as Sicily."' So wrote L. Sprague de Camp in an examination of the geographical knowledge of the ancient Greeks at the time of the composition of the Timaeus and the Critias. That Plato had more than once looked westwards towards Sicily is abundantly clear: if other aspects of Plato's life are obscured by later ignorance, his visits to the city of Syracuse in Sicily are well attested by ancient sources. The first visit took place during the reign of Dionysius I in 388/387 B.C.; Plato returned to Syracuse some twenty years later, in 367, when Dionysius II came to the throne; the final visit is dated to 361, and after this journey Plato retired to his Athenian Academy for the rest of his life. It was, in fact, during this "post-Sicilian" phase of his career that Plato composed his two Atlantis dialogues, and, given the obvious fact that Sicily, like Atlantis, was a large island in the west, it seems likely that Sicily, and more specifically Syracuse, had some role to play in the Platonic depiction of the lost island. In addition to its western location, the island of Sicily possesses many features which remind one of Atlantis. First, given the small size of most political units in the ancient world, Sicily would be regarded as an extraordinarily large landmass: its close to 26,000 square kilometres would by comparison dwarf the mere 2,600 square kilometres of Plato's own Attica. The largest island in the entire Mediterranean basin, Sicily in fact "approached to the nature of a continent. It was not only large enough to contain many cities; it was large enough to have its coast studded with sea-faring cities, and at the same time to leave a large inland region really away from the sea."2

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In the compact world of the Greek city-state, Sicily would stand out as an island of incredible proportions. Moreover, this massive island echoes Atlantis in having an important plain famous for both its size and its fertility. Known as the Catanian plain, this fertile stretch of land dominated the eastern third of Sicily, extending from Mt. Etna in the north to the city of Syracuse in the south. Well drained by a complex river system, the Catanian plain played a crucial role as a productive breadbasket for much of the ancient world.3 Its proximity to the major city of Syracuse recalls the closeness of the Atlantean plain to Plato's royal city. The landscape of Sicily, like that of Atlantis, was crowned by mountains, with the mighty peak of Etna standing some 3,28o metres high. Etna is an active volcano, and Plato made a special effort to see this imposing sight on his first visit to Sicily.' The volcanic nature of Etna also serves to remind us that Sicily is geologically unstable, as earthquake prone today as it was in antiquity. Atlantis, of course, was destroyed by violent seismic activity. Other areas in which Sicily can be said to parallel Atlantis include the abundance of timber from numerous forested areas; multiple harvests, especially of wheat; excellent mineral resources; and an unusually large human population for antiquity. Indeed, two of the three "supercities" of the Greek world were to be found on Sicily: Acragas and Syracuse. Moreover, the area of Sicily near the city of 8. Sicily

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9. The Ancient City of Syracuse, after William Smith Selinus was famous in antiquity for its hot and cold springs.6 Thus, many of the features previously noted as existing on Crete in the Bronze Age also existed on Sicily in the time of Plato, and lead one to wonder if there is more of Sicily in the depiction of Atlantis than heretofore suspected. Suspicions increase when we realize that the single most important city of Sicily in the Classical Age was Syracuse, a city well known

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today as an ancient maritime power often antagonistic towards Athens. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian demagogue Alcibiades persuaded his fellow citizens to embark upon the conquest of Sicily, and in 415 s.c. a mighty Athenian armada of more than 25o ships set sail. The focal point of the Athenian attack was, logically enough, the powerful city of Syracuse, which successfully withstood the initial Athenian onslaught and in fact gained the upper hand by 413 s.c. In that year one of the most frightful defeats ever to be inflicted on Athens took place when the Syracusan forces slaughtered the retreating Athenian forces. Few Athenian soldiers returned home, and Athens' overall war effort against Sparta suffered a serious setback.' Syracuse, however, not only reflects Atlantis in its hostility to Athens; it reveals a major affinity with Plato's royal city in having its citadel capital located on an island which was joined to the rest of its territory by a man-made bridge. If the concept of an "island capital on a continental-sized island" is central to Atlantis, only Syracuse and Sicily offer convincing parallels. When Syracuse had been founded in 734 B.C., the initial settlement had been established on the small island called Ortygia which projected into the Bay of Syracuse, forming the so-called Great Harbour to its west and the Little Harbour to its east. This low islet, only about 1.6 kilometres long, was separated from the mainland by a very narrow strait, and it was not long before an artificial causeway bridged the two landmasses.' As Syracuse grew, this initial settlement spread to the mainland area known as Achradina; by the time of the tyrant Gelon (c. 485 s.c.) , Achradina "came to be known as the Outer City [i EEw röacr], while the island of Ortygia was called the Inner City."8 The two areas were, of course, separated by a body of water much like the ring of water which served to divide the Atlantean citadel from its outer ring of land. By the time Plato visited Ortygia in person, the island citadel had been transformed by Dionysius I into a massive private fortress.' The island was now surrounded by a double wall with towers, just as Atlantis' inner citadel was encircled by a stone wall, covered with orichalkos and interspersed with towers. Moreover, Dionysius had constructed an inner fort within the island as his private residence, a feature at once reminiscent of the ancient royal palace built by Poseidon in his inner city. Like the royal city, Ortygia was rich in springs: there are several freshwater springs which cluster together upon the island, the most famous being the so-called Fountain of Arethusa.10 Ortygia, moreover, was the focal point of both the Great and Little Harbours in

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which Dionysius built numerous shipyards and docks; the harbours of Plato's royal city likewise featured extensive shipyards and docks. Indeed, like Plato's great outer harbour, the Great Harbour of Syracuse would have impressed a visitor by its sheer size alone, being approximately eight kilometres in circumference, and thus "greatly exceeding the dimensions of what the ancients usually understood by a port, ... forming a very nearly land-locked basin of a somewhat oval form, which afforded a secure shelter to shipping in all weather."" Another striking Atlantean parallel is to be found in the temples of Ortygia. Although Ortygia was officially consecrated to the goddess Artemis, the island boasted large temples to Apollo and Athene.12 The latter temple, in fact, was unusually luxurious, featuring not only a finely decorated interior, but also doors made of gold and ivory; in comparison, the magnificent temple dedicated to Poseidon and Cleito was also adorned with much gold and ivory. While Greek temples of this sort were clearly alien to Minoan Crete, they were quite at home in Sicilian Syracuse. Additional parallels are close at hand: for example, as mentioned previously, the city of Syracuse was located at the edge of the great Catanian plain, a geographical situation very reminiscent of Plato's city; moreover, like Plato's city, Syracuse would appear to be bounded by a plain on one side and by the sea on the other. Both cities were architecturally impressive, with even the so-called Outer City of Syracuse elaborately adorned with porticoes and other public buildings.'s Both were populous, with the population of Syracuse probably exceeding 4.00,000; indeed, both cities could appropriately be called the largest and most powerful cities of their day. Powerful cities in the ancient world tended to be massively walled for defensive purposes, and both Syracuse and the royal city adhered to this vital tradition. Plato turned his city into one encircled by imposing walls, and Dionysius I did the same for outer Syracuse, transforming it into the "most heavily fortified of all Greek cities."" To ensure the security of his city, Dionysius built an extensive outer wall, complete with towers, from the mouth of the Great Harbour around the heights known as the Epipolae and back down to the northeastern coast. These "walls of the Epipolae" were an extraordinary undertaking, enclosing as they did the entire outer district of Syracuse and forming the largest circuit wall possessed by any Greek city. Thus, in addition to an inner ring of defensive walls around Ortygia, Syracuse could claim, by the time of Plato, an impressive outer ring of walls. The parallel with Plato's royal city is abundantly clear. There is yet another parallel which is far too close to be the result

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of mere coincidence. As we have seen, Plato divided his city, by means of rings of water, into four zones: the inmost zone was the true citadel, complete with royal palace, temple, grove, and springs; the next zone of land featured more temples and gardens; the third zone was more complex, containing not only temples and gardens, but also a stadium and gymnasia; the fourth and final zone was the busy mercantile quarter. In regard to Syracuse, two ancient sources, Diodorus Siculus and Cicero, inform us that it was considered to be a "tetrapolis," that is, a city with four distinct zones.16 As Cicero wrote, So large is the city that it is described as being four great cities joined together. One of these is the Island [Ortygia] already mentioned, girdled by the two harbours, and extending to their two mouths or entrances.... Then there is a second town in the city, called Achradina: this contains a broad marketplace, some fine colonnades, a richly-adorned town-hall, a spacious senate-house, and the noble temple of Olympian Jupiter, besides the rest of the town, which is filled with private houses... . There is a third town, called Tycha from the ancient temple of Fortune that once stood there: this contains a spacious athletic ground and several temples, and is also a crowded and thickly inhabited part of the city. And there is a fourth town, which being the most recently built is called Neapolis: on the highest point of this stands the great theatre.16 Even though Cicero lived after Plato, most authorities agree that his description of the city probably reflects the appearance of Syracuse in the fourth century B.c. It takes little imagination to see how closely the four zones of historical Syracuse parallel the four zones of Plato's royal city; indeed, Plato's third zone, with its temples and gymnasia, finds an impressively accurate echo in the temples and gymnasia of Tycha. Syracuse reminds one of Atlantis and its royal city in spiritual, as well as in physical, matters. The hallmark of Plato's lost island is its debased, aggressive nature. The Atlanteans had become over the course of time an imperialistic people threatening the peace and security of the rest of the civilized world. Syracuse, too, had a reputation in Plato's time for debasement and imperialism,17 and this was one reason Plato thought it worthwhile to try to "educate" the young Dionysius II. In fact, the impending doom of Atlantis at the end of the Critias could be seen as an allegorical warning to the tyrant: return, says Plato, to better ways, or face total destruction.

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Syracusan imperialism had reached a highpoint in the reign of Dionysius I. Continuing conflict with Carthage had resulted, in 397 B.C., in Dionysius' siege of Motya, the main Carthaginian base on Sicily. When the city fell to the Syracusans, a cruel massacre took place, with both Carthaginian and Greek inhabitants put to the sword.18 Dionysius was not one to show mercy or restraint in the consolidation of his empire. A few years later Dionysius gave further signs of his aggressive nature : as Diodorus Siculus wrote, "Dionysius ... resolved to plant cities on the Adriatic Sea. His idea in doing this was to get control of the Ionian Sea, in order that he might make the route to Epeirus safe and have there his own cities.... For it was his intent to descend unexpectedly with great armaments upon the regions about Epeirus and to sack the temple at Delphi, which was filled with great wealth.s19 Here was a man whose arrogant ambition knew no bounds, who would not even hesitate to attack the holy centre of his own Greek world. Like Atlantis, the Syracuse of Dionysius I would march from the west against both barbarian and Greek alike. Diodorus then goes on to state that "Dionysius, in need of money, set out to make war against Tyrrhenia with sixty triremes,"20 and we are at once reminded that "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" (Timaeus 25b; italics mine). That Plato had the Syracuse of Dionysius in mind as he worked on the Timaeus and the Critias thus seems very probable. In fact, Plato himself offers his readers several clues as to the real identity of his Atlanteans. These clues take the form of the names attached to various characters in the two compositions. First, there is the prominence of Hermocrates as one of the participants in the presentation of the dialogues. Hermocrates was, of course, a major political figure at Syracuse and the one man who deserved most of the credit for repelling the Athenian invasion of 415 B.c. In 409, however, Hermocrates fell out of favour at Syracuse and was exiled; determined to regain his position, Hermocrates gathered a force of mercenaries and established a base in western Sicily. By 407 Hermocrates was ready to march on Syracuse, but his attempted coup failed and he himself was killed.2' One of his followers, however, was the young Dionysius, who would soon accomplish what Hermocrates had tried to do. As Dionysius I, this wouldbe rebel soldier went on to exercise absolute power in Syracuse for the next thirty-eight years. To make his political heritage clear, Dionysius quickly married the daughter of none other than Hermocrates. Thus the important role played by Hermocrates in the dramatic situation of the Timaeus and the Critias would serve to make

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Plato's audience immediately aware of the powerful Syracusan citystate. Moreover, Plato's "Timaeus," apparently a fictional character created expressly for these dialogues, is specifically said to be a native of Locri in southern Italy. The choice of Locri here seems not without significance, since another of Dionysius' wives came from that state. It was in fact this wife who became the mother of Dionysius II, the object of Plato's attention; Dionysius II was often resident in Locri among his mother's relatives, especially when matters were not going well for him in Syracuse itself.22 In addition, it should be remembered that the name "Timaeus" did appear in Sicilian history, although long after the time of Plato. A Sicilian writer of that name seems to have lived from approximately 33o to 25o s.c., and, while this Timaeus can obviously have no direct relevance to Plato's character, his existence may well indicate the prominence of the name "Timaeus" in Sicily. Thus a Platonic character with that name could be another signpost pointing our attention west to Sicily and Syracuse. Finally, there is one other name in the Platonic narrative that has links with Syracuse: in the Critias Plato tells of the children begotten by Poseidon and Cleito; the eldest of their first set of twins was Atlas, after whom the island was named, while the junior member of this pair was called Eumelus, a name of great importance in the early history of Syracuse. The famous epic poet Eumelus was a member of the powerful Bacchiad family of Corinth who flourished in the eighth century s.c.; Syracuse was founded in that period by settlers from Corinth, and there is reason to believe that this Eumelus assisted Archias, the leader of the colony, at Syracuse.'-3 Thus, just as Plato's Eumelus was second in importance only to Atlas, so Syracuse's Eumelus was similarly ranked beside Archias. That such a correspondence is purely accidental seems hard to accept and is more likely another of the clues planted by Plato in his tale and intended to enable us to connect Atlantis with Syracuse and Sicily. THE CORINTHIAN CONNECTION

The association of the poet Eumelus with both Syracuse and Corinth leads our investigation of Plato's sources for Atlantis to the Peloponnese of Greece and, specifically, to the area around the Gulf of Corinth. In 373 s.c., when Plato was fifty-four years old, a devastating earthquake struck that region of southern Greece. We are fortunate to possess a vivid account of this disaster in the history of Diodorus Siculus:

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Great earthquakes occurred in the Peloponnese accompanied by tidal waves which engulfed the open country and cities in a manner past belief; for never in the earlier periods had such disasters befallen Greek cities, nor had entire cities along with their inhabitants disappeared as a result of some divine force wreaking destruction and ruin upon mankind. The extent of the destruction was increased by the time of its occurrence; for the earthquake did not come in the daytime when it would have been possible for the sufferers to help themselves, but the blow came at night, so that when the houses crashed and crumbled under the force of the shock, the population, owing to the darkness and to the surprise and bewilderment occasioned by the event, had no power to struggle for life. The majority were caught in the falling houses and annihilated, but as day returned some survivors dashed from the ruins and, when they thought they had escaped the danger, met a greater and still more incredible disaster. For the sea rose to a vast height, and a wave towering even higher washed away and drowned all the inhabitants and their native lands as well. Two cities in Achaia bore the brunt of this disaster, Helice and Bura, the former of which had, as it happened, before the earthquake held first place among the cities of Achaia.24 It can be seen that Diodorus' description of this event presents many points of comparison with Plato's description of the destruction of Atlantis: not only are there devastating earthquakes and tidal waves, but even entire cities disappeared "as a result of some divine force." Indeed, the Peloponnesian catastrophe "was attributed to the vengeance of Poseidon, whose wrath was excited because the inhabitants of Helice had refused to give their statue of Poseidon to the Ionian colonists in Asia."28 In this manner, during Plato's life and at a time when he was resident in Athens, an unprecedented natural disaster, composed of earthquakes and floods, destroyed at least two important cities in Greece; one of them, Helice on the Gulf of Corinth, in fact slumped into the sea and disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving no survivors. Nor was there any trace left of the impressive Temple of Poseidon which had once made her famous. Surely it is inconceivable that this incredible disaster made no impression on a man as sensitive as Plato. Here must have been the very immediate source of the necessary destruction of Atlantis, as Plato learned for himself what earthquakes and floods could do to

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a human settlement, especially if some divine plan was thought to be at work. ATALANTE

There remains one problem often debated by seekers after Atlantis: what is the source of the name "Atlantis" itself? Why did Plato give that particular name to his lost island? Once again, as in the Peloponnesian disaster of 373 B.C., a violent natural catastrophe in Plato's own world would appear to provide an answer. In the Opuntian Gulf, off the coast of Locris in central Greece near Euboea, stood a small island known as Atalante. According to ancient Greek tradition, this island had once been part of the mainland, but had later been separated from it by a violent earthquake. 28 Although in every respect an unimpressive patch of soil, Atalante became, during the early years of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the site of an Athenian fort.27 In the summer of 426 B.c., approximately one year after the birth of Plato, yet another severe earthquake struck Greece: this time the focal point of the shock was central Greece, specifically the Gulf of Maliakos and the area around Euboea. The seismic shock suddenly disturbed the sea bottom in the region, and three tsunamis were generated; according to the historians Thucydides and Strabo, the island of Atalante was overwhelmed by water. As Thucydides wrote: "The sea at Orobiae, in Euboea, retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge wave and invaded a great part of the town; so that what was once land is now sea; ... a similar inundation also occurred at Atalante, the island off the Opuntian-Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian fort and wrecking one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach."28 The version offered by Strabo supplements this account : "It is said in addition that the middle portions of Atalante near Euboea, because they had been torn apart, acquired a canal for ships as a result of the rent, and that some of the plains were flooded even as far as twenty stades; a trireme was lifted from the docks and then thrown over a wall."28 Strabo's mention of a canal for ships being suddenly created as a consequence of rifting during the earthquake quickly brings to mind Plato's "canal to the sea" on Atlantis. It seems likely that this disaster of 426 B.C. was a topic of conversation among the Greeks for many years, especially among the Athenians who had lost a fort on Atalante. It does not take a far flight of the imagination to see the young Plato being told of the fearful natural catastrophe visited upon that nearby island. Indeed, accounts of such an event would naturally leave a strong impression on the

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mind of a child. Moreover, the mature Plato would have been able to see for himself the awesome effects of the disaster, for the ship canal on Atalante would stand as mute, but graphic, testimony. Then, in his later years, when Plato set about creating his tale of a lost island, the name of Atalante would come to mind and, with a minor change to protect the integrity of his story, would be transformed into Atlantis, a name which in itself was appropriate for a legendary island, being connected with the mythical figure of Atlas. The traditional association of Atlas with the west would then lead Plato to deposit his island in the western extremity of the then-known world. PERSIANS AND PELOPONNESIANS

If the individual elements of the tale of Atlantis had been collected by Plato from a variety of sources, there still remained the essential theme of the myth itself : a conflict between a large and arrogant naval empire and a small, but virtuous, Iand power, a conflict which would in fact determine the future history of the world. For such a theme Plato had two prototypes close at hand: the Persian Wars of 490-479 B.C. and the Peloponnesian War of 431-404 B.C. Significantly enough, both conflicts featured Athens in a central role. In the Persian conflict, Athens saw herself as standing alone in championing Greece against the imperialistic ambitions of the Persian empire.30 When the war began, Athens was a modest land power confronted by a massive naval machine; a hurried ship-building program had to be initiated by her leaders to enable Athens to meet the maritime threat posed by the Persians with their skilled Phoenician navy. Persia, very much like Atlantis, was coming against Europe to expand her realm at the cost of other people's freedom; Persia, again like Atlantis, met with defeat at the hands of a numerically inferior Athenian force. Indeed, the very words used by Plato to describe the Athenian conquest of Atlantis are totally applicable to the Athenian conquest of the Persians: "And then, Solon, your country shone forth.... 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, ... she defeated and triumphed over the invaders" (Timaeus 25b—c). Here, then, was a recent historical parallel for Plato's war between Atlantis and ancient Athens. The Persian conflict, however, was not the only recent prototype available to Plato: during the early part of his life, Plato himself had witnessed a similar conflict between a mighty naval empire and a humbler land power. This time, in the Peloponnesian War, it was to be Athens in the role of an Atlantis and Sparta in the role of ancient Athens.

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After the Persian Wars had ended, Athens embarked upon her own program of empire building. Taking her cue from Persia, Athens focused her energies upon amassing an impressive naval force, and by 431 B.C. she had succeeded in becoming the absolute ruler of a maritime empire in the Aegean. The growth of Athens in this way inspired alarm in Sparta, whose might was based on its hoplite army, not on any naval force; as the Greeks themselves later realized, war between Athens and Sparta was becoming inevitable.3' It is clear from his writings that Plato admired Sparta and its system of government. The Athens of his own day seemed to Plato an overgrown and arrogant tyrant, an intolerant state that would even stoop to condemning Socrates to death on trumped-up charges. Thus the victory of Sparta over Athens in the Peloponnesian War was not surprising to him but served to affirm a divine truth: those who become overly proud and tyrannical are doomed to defeat by those who maintain the spark of divine virtue. Athens had gone the way of Persia, abandoning the wisdom of Athene to follow the militaristic adventures of Poseidon; her defeat at the hands of Sparta simply repeated the lesson of the earlier Persian Wars. And so Plato had his second model for the conflict between Atlantis and Athens, a conflict full of moral implications and divine truths, especially for the Syracuse of his own day, seemingly intent on repeating history.32 THE BIRTH OF ATLANTIS

Plato's Atlantis is essentially a conflation of many different elements. The oldest element would appear to be a folk-memory of the end of the Minoan realm as occasioned by the eruption of Thera. As we have seen, there is nothing inherently improbable about an Egyptian memory of this event which came to be passed on to the Greeks. How detailed this memory was is difficult to determine, but it certainly preserved the tale of a mighty empire suddenly and unexpectedly destroyed by a cataclysmic natural event. To a moralizing philosopher such as Plato, the sudden destruction of an empire would be seen as an act of divinity, as a punishment for arrogant pride. The empire of his own day most vulnerable to such a fate was clearly that of Syracuse in Sicily, and so Plato began to create an "Atlantis" that would be Dionysian Syracuse about to meet the legendary doom of Minoan Crete unless some last-minute redemption was achieved. Thus the vague folk-memory of Bronze Age Crete came to be supplemented by real details of Sicily and Syracuse in Plato's own time. The process can be compared to that of the famous Athenian black-figure pottery : the broad form of a

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picture is laid out in a dark silhouette, and lines are then incised upon that silhouette to give life to the picture. The incised lines used by Plato were taken from recent Greek history and his own experiences. Not only Sicily and Syracuse, but also Helice and Atalante were present to add realistic details. The central theme itself was derived from two recent wars which had fallen upon the Greek world and had shown similar universal principles at work. Syracuse, were it not more attune to its danger, could well become the next "Atlantis" and the next victim of a stinging defeat at the hands of a more virtuous power. Yet, Plato obviously felt there was still time for Syracuse to save itself and fulfil its early promise, for that is the motivation behind his creation of the entire Atlantis tale. In this way, Plato created a tale that is "true" in its parts but "false" on the whole. His conflation of "historical" material resulted in something "unhistorical," just as the Athenian tragic dramatists would often use variant versions of a myth to create a tale totally unique and nontraditional. That this is what Plato has done in the case of Atlantis seems even more apparent when we remember the occasion on which Critias claims to have heard the story of the lost island: the Apaturia was the Athenian "Feast of Deception."88

11

The Lure of Atlantis Throughout the latter part of his life, Plato was haunted by a vision of the ideal city-state, a republic in which all individual citizens lived and worked in perfect civic harmony. There would no longer be class strife, injustice, or greed, but the greater good of the commonwealth would prevail over private good to the benefit of all. To guide and foster such a republic Plato conceived of the "philosopher-king," a specially trained ruler who alone could oversee the smooth functioning of the state. As Plato looked about the Greek world of the fourth century B.e., he saw almost every city-state pursuing a path very different from that of his ideal republic. There was, however, one state that had the potential, at least in Plato's eyes, to rise above the ordinary and achieve the ideal. This was Syracuse, a state younger than those of Greece proper and therefore not so bound by entrenched traditions. Syracuse, moreover, was then in the control of a tyrant, and such oneman rule could more easily be transformed into the rule of a philosopher-king than could an established aristocracy or democracy. To create a true philosopher-king, however, required pliable raw material, but Dionysius I of Syracuse was by then inflexibly committed to his own way of life. A younger, more trainable prince was needed, and so Plato devoted his attention to Dionysius II, who would, in the normal course of events, succeed his father as absolute ruler of Syracuse. Here was Plato's raw clay, out of which could be fashioned the perfect philosopher-king, ready to make Syracuse the historical realization of Plato's vision. What was possible in theory, however, was doomed to failure in practice, and Plato was never successful in turning the young Diony-

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sius into his philosopher-king. His disappointment must have been immense, especially when Plato saw all the potential inherent in Syracuse continuously being channelled onto a path that must eventually lead to ruin. The philosopher's utopia was rapidly becoming a "dystopia," or ideal state gone bad. In a desperate last attempt to set Syracuse and its tyrant on the right path, Plato developed the tale of Atlantis and ancient Athens. Drawing on the resources of ancient tradition and on his own fertile imagination, Plato composed a complex allegory for Syracuse, the story of an originally ideal state that lost its "divine spark" and thus sealed its own doom. Atlantis was shown to be a noble experiment which somehow missed its mark, and the gods, like responsible scientists, removed it from their master plan. Until that final act of divine judgement, however, there was still time to take remedial action. Dionysius II might yet recognize the errors of his ways and apply himself to the path of the philosopherking. Then Syracuse would be saved and, more importantly, be enabled to reach its full potential. With such a hope uppermost in his mind, Plato set to work on his Timaeus and Critias. As visualized by Plato, Atlantis was to be the monitory image of an ideal republic that had degenerated and lost its way; ancient Athens, on the other hand, was to stand for the true ideal which Atlantis had rejected. In an ironic twist of history, Plato's ancient Athens today receives little attention, while the doomed Atlantis has firmly seized our imaginations and come to represent the lost utopia of mankind's childhood. Indeed, the emotional attraction of Plato's Atlantis has remained so strong that many today invest it with a grandeur and glory alien to Plato's tale of decay and degeneration. It would seem that, in attempting to reach the mind of the young Dionysius, Plato in fact struck a universal chord to which we all are attuned. It is clear that the Atlantis of modern mystics and visionaries is not really that of Plato. Taking only a cue from Plato, these dreamers have turned Atlantis into an image of past perfection; the lost island has become another Eden, a place where, a long time ago, all was right with the world. As a result, Plato's island is commonly viewed by modern Atlantists not only as an ideally functioning political entity, but also as the birthplace of all art and science, of everything in fact which raises mankind above the level of the animals. This "revised" Atlantis is essentially the island of Ignatius Donnelly as opposed to that of Plato; it has been transformed into a symbol of all that mankind, in its own folly, has lost, but still hopes to regain. It is a dreamworld, the home of supermen and superscience, a world

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whose siren call becomes even stronger as we progress into a future full of fears and uncertainties. The tale of Atlantis indeed speaks to us on a psychological level perhaps only dimly understood by Plato. As we become increasingly unhappy with ourselves, it is reassuring to believe that mankind had once existed on some higher plane. Dissatisfaction with the present, coupled with fear of the future, leads us to regress into a more perfect and secure past. In this sense, the search for Atlantis could be called an exercise in escapism. Because we have a lingering desire for "something better" (a desire which inevitably led to the creation of literary utopias in all ages) , it is psychologically painful to be told that Atlantis never really existed, that it was all an ingenious creation of an imaginative Athenian philosopher. We become very much like the five year old who has just realized that his beloved Santa Claus is a fiction : the whole world suddenly seems a less entrancing place, and Christmas will somehow never be the same. Romance reluctantly yields to reality, and, by such a process, we indeed grow up. Deprived of the Atlantis conjured up for the modern world by men such as Donnelly, we are forced to view man's ascent as the painful, disaster-filled process it was, with no outside intervention, no sudden diffusion of civilization from a lost motherland. We are forced to rely on ourselves in a complex world in which self-reliance can be a terrifying prospect. Perhaps, then, the Atlantis of our dreams is really a manifestation of our modern insecurities, of our eternal wish to find simple solutions to increasingly complex problems. The Atlantis of Plato, however, was intended as a political allegory and aimed at a specific person in a specific place. But the universality of Plato's message is as unmistakable today as it was in the past, and that universality will not allow the tale to fade from our memory. Plato might well be surprised to find that his clever story has so beguiled us, but he would not be displeased.

Notes Chapter 1 For Aristotle's view, cf. Strabo 2.102 and 13.598; for Crantor's view, see Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, 24a-b. 2. Diego de Landa, Relatio n de las Cosas de Yucatan (1566); the quotation is from the translation by A. R. Pagden (Chicago: J. P. O'Hara, 1975) 38. 3. I. Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1971 ed.) 1-2. 4. Paul Schliemann, "How I Discovered Atlantis, the Source of All Civilization," The New York American (1912). 5. L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents ( 1 970 ) 54• 6. I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (1950). 7. For a discussion of this view, see B. Steiger's Atlantis Rising (1973 ) 166-81. 8. Timaeus 20d-27b. Translation by B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato (197o ed.). 9. Critias 108c-121c. Translation by B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato ( 197 0 ed.) . I.

Chapter 2 1. Diogenes Laertius 3.1-2 (Oxford text) . 2. Diogenes Laertius 3.6. 3. I. Linforth, Solon the Athenian (1919) 97. 4. For an examination of Plato's visits to Sicily, see the introduction to J. Harward's translation, The Platonic Epistles (1932) 14-29. 5. Translations of Diodorus Siculus from the Loeb edition by C. H. Oldfather. 6. Herodotus 1.30-33. 7. Linforth, Solon the Athenian, 34-35. 8. Plutarch Solon 8-9. 9. For the date of the Salamis episode, see Linforth's Solon the Athenian, 249-64. so. Ibid., 300. I I. Ibid., 302.

188

Notes to Pages 4 1-54

12. Ibid., 119; italics mine. 13. Thucydides 6.72 ff. 14. On this point, see W. Welliver, Character, Plot and Thought in Plato's "Timaeus-Critias" (1977) 51. 15. Ibid. t6. T. G. Rosenmeyer, "The Family of Critias," American Journal of Philology 70 (1949) 404-Io. 17. J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (1971) 326.

Chapter 3 t. These sample definitions were provided by students after surveying numerous dictionaries and handbooks; also illustrative in this respect is the broad definition of myth given in the 1979 edition of Funk and Wagnalls' New Encyclopedia: "a tale of obscure or forgotten origin, fundamentally religious in character, having a supernatural frame of reference and serving to explain or sanctify some concept, usage, institution, or natural phenomenon." See "Mythology," vol. 17, p. 95. 2. See M. Reinhold, Past and Present (1972 ) chap. 3, "The Nature of Myth." 3. Ibid., 32. 4. G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (1974) 33-34. 5. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Zande Trickster (1967) 15. 6. Reinhold, Past and Present, 32. 7. Ibid., 32-33. 8. Ibid., 16. g. See D. B. Vitaliano's Legends of the Earth (1973 ) for this point of view. to. For example, Charles Berlitz in his popular book The Mystery of Atlantis (1976 ed.) . 11. Reinhold, Past and Present, 13. 12. For Euhemerus' views, see Diodorus Siculus 6.1.3 ff., and Athenaeus 14.658e. 13. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, 38-91. 74. See Andrew Lang's works, Custom and Myth (1884) and Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887). 15. The phrase "charter myths" is usually associated with B. Malinowski (see his Magic, Science and Religion, 1948). 16. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, 6o. 17. Reinhold, Past and Present, 17. 18. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, 223-53. 19. R. De Langhe, in Myth, Ritual and Kingship, ed. S. H. Hooke (1958) 131; cf. J. Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth (1966). 20. See Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, 43-53. 21. S. Freud, "The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" in Collected Papers (1925 ) 4.182. 22. For example, C. G. Jung and M.-L. von Franz, Man and His Symbols (London: Aldus Books, 1964). 23. For a thorough examination of Levi-Strauss, see G. S. Kirk's Myth: Its Meaning and Functions (1970) 42-83. 24. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, 82-83. 25. Reinhold, Past and Present, 14. 26. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths, l og.

Notes to Pages 54-73

189

27. For the complete analysis, see ibid., 113-75. 28. Ibid., 172. 29. Ibid., 215. 3o. See such modern and standard texts as J. B. Bury and R. Meiggs, A History of Greece4 (London: Macmillan, 1975) 42-44; and C. G. Starr, A History of the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965) 109. 31. See Sir Arthur Evans' The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-36). 32. C. W. Biegen and Marion Rawson, The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in

Western Messenia (1966). 33. See M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek2 ( 1973) 92-105. 34 See D. L. Page, History and the Homeric Epic (1972) ; and J. V. Luce, Homer and the Heroic Age (1975 ). 35. Vitaliano, Legends, 272.

Chapter 4 t. For a thorough analysis of this dominance of myth in Greek literature, see E. A. Havelock's Preface to Plato (1963). 2. A good example is furnished by the treatment of the Phaedra-Hippolytus myth by Sophocles and Euripides: the characterization of Phaedra varied, the sequence of events was manipulated, and the scene of the action changed from Euripides' Hippolytus I to Sophocles' Phaedra to Euripides' Hippolytus II (the extant play). 3. See Hesiod's Theogony 9.507-616. 4. Aeschylus apparently wanted to express his support for a new AthenianArgive alliance. See J. B. Bury and R. Meiggs, A History of Greece4 (London, 1975) 218. 5. Pausanias 9.5. 6. All passages from the Euthyphro translated by Lane Cooper (1941). 7. All passages from the Republic translated by G. M. A. Grube (1974.). 8. All passages from the Laws translated by A. E. Taylor (1934). 9. All passages from the Phaedrus translated by R. Hackforth (1952). to. All passages from the Lysis translated by J. Wright (Iglo). t 1. All passages from the Protagoras translated by W. K. C. Guthrie (1956 ). 12. All passages from the Politicus translated by J. B. Skemp (1952). 13. All passages from the Gorgias translated by W. D. Woodhead (1953). 14. All passages from the Phaedo translated by Hugh Tredennick ( 1 954) 15. I do not classify as myths the parable of the ship (6.488) or the allegory of the cave (7.514) for the obvious reason that these are clearly Platonic teaching devices with no pretence of being mythical. 16. Hesiod's "Ages of Metal" is a very different myth. 17. E. Voegelin, Plato (1966) 159. 18. J. A. Stewart, The Myths of Plato (1960 ed.) 192. 19. A. E. Taylor, Plato (1926) 469-70. 20. Ibid., 470. 21. This is, of course, a variation on the now-familiar concept of the earthborn men. 22. See Theogony 9.507. 23. For Theuth, see V. L. Davis, "Pathways to the Gods," in Ancient Egypt

190

Notes to Pages 73-85

(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1978) 164-65. 24. All passages from the Philebus translated by R. Hackforth ( 1 945) 25. Plato seems to be referring to Pythagoras here. 26. The Socratic analogy of the soul to a charioteer with two steeds, which appears in Phaedrus 246, is not to be classified as a myth. This picture of the soul, divine bliss, reincarnation and judgement, and Forms is an analogy composed in poetic language, as Socrates says (257); it uses what may be called "mythical language" (265 ), but it is still not a myth in the true sense of that term. It is therefore omitted from this analysis. If, however, one insisted on its inclusion, the tale is undoubtedly a Platonic invention. 27. All passages from the Symposium translated by M. Joyce ( 1 835). 28. I owe this phrasing to B. Brown, a former classics student at the University of Waterloo. 29. Voegelin, Plato, 184.

Chapter 5 t. By comparison, modern Greece has a total area of around 132,000 square kilometres. 2. I. Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1971 ed.) 135. 3. A good example is provided by L. Taylor Hansen's The Ancient Atlantic (1969) . Like Donnelly, Hansen has a totally uncritical approach to sources. See also Charles Berlitz' The Mystery of Atlantis (1976 ed.). 4. See V. W. von Hagen, The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas (1962) 268. 5. Donnelly, Atlantis, 33o. 6. For example, Erich von Däniken, in Chariots of the Cods? (1971 ed.) 74-89. 7. See von Hagen, Ancient Sun Kingdoms, 172-209, for an examination of Mayan architecture; see also J. N. Leonard, Ancient America (New York: Time-Life, 1967) 3 1-55. 8. Leonard, Ancient America, 62-63. Cf. V. W. von Hagen, The Aztecs: Man and Tribe (New York: Mentor, 1961) 44-47. 9. Lewis Spence, The Problem of Atlantis (1924) 163. 1o. Ibid., 42-43. 11. Ibid., 229. 12. Ibid., 93. 13. Ibid., 112. 14. Ibid., 122. 15. That the antiquity of the Mayas in America is no "new" discovery is indicated by von Hagen, Ancient Sun Kingdoms: see his discussion of Mayan roots, pp. 120-32. 16. E. P. Lanning, Peru before the Incas (1967). 17. In this regard one should keep in mind Spence's comment that "the entire Cretan civilization was obviously a thing introduced from elsewhere, the fag-end of an old and almost decadent culture" (The Problem of Atlantis, p. 208), a view now completely exploded by archaeological investigations. 18. L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents (1970) 111-12.

Notes to Pages 86-96

ig r

19. Ibid., 1 45. 20. Donnelly, Atlantis, 468. 21. For example, see Berlitz' fifth chapter in Mystery of Atlantis. 22. Donnelly, Atlantis, 46. 23. Spence, The Problem of Atlantis, 38. 24. Donnelly, Atlantis, 49. 25. See de Camp, Lost Continents, 164. 26. Spence, The Problem of Atlantis, 27; Berlitz, Mystery of Atlantis (first published in 1969) 69. 27. de Camp, Lost Continents, 164. See also L. D. Leet and S. Judson, Physical Geology2 (1958) 42-47. 28. Leet and Judson, Physical Geology2, 298-99; and also K. O. Emery, "The Continental Shelves" in The Ocean (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1 969) 39-52. 29. Berlitz, Mystery of Atlantis, 189. 30. See D. B. Vitaliano, Legends of the Earth (1973 ) chap. 3. Also Emery's "The Continental Shelves," 39-52. 31. See de Camp's analysis in Lost Continents, 1 94-95. 32. The Bimini structures have been most recently (1978) investigated by Philippe Cousteau, with inconclusive results as to their origin. 33. Donnelly, Atlantis, 56. 34. Ibid., 61; B. Steiger, Atlantis Rising (1973) 13-14. 35. Leonard, Ancient America, 15-16; Richard S. MacNeish, "Ancient Mesoamerican Civilization," Science 1 43 (1964) 531-37. 36. de Camp, Lost Continents, 112. 37. A. Hallam, "Continental Drift and the Fossil Record," Scientific American 227 ( 1 972 ) 57. 38. J. Tuzo Wilson, "Continental Drift," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground (1976) 24. 39. J. Tuzo Wilson, in the introduction to Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, p. 3. 40. For details of the theory of plate tectonics, see C. K. Seyfert and L. A. Sirkin, Earth History and Plate Tectonics (1973) . 41. D. H. Tarling and M. P. Tarling, Continental Drift (1972) chap. 9. 42. M. Nafi Toksöz, "The Subduction of the Lithosphere" in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, 113. 43• K. C. Burke and J. Tuzo Wilson, "Hot Spots on the Earth's Surface," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, 6t. 44. J. R. Heirtzler and W. B. Bryan, "The Floor of the Mid-Atlantic Rift," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, 159-60. 45. Ibid., 16o. See also J. R. Heirtzler and X. Le Pichon, "FAMOUS: A Plate Tectonic Study of the Genesis of the Lithosphere," Geology 2 ( 1 874) 2 73-74. 46. See, for example, the map in Seyfert and Sirkin, Earth History, 81. Cf. R. S. Dietz and J. C. Holden, "The Breakup of Pangaea," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground, Igo 47. Two illustrative articles are those by A. Hallam, "Continental Drift and the Fossil Record," Scientific American 227 (1972) 57-66; and B. Kurten, "Continental Drift and Evolution," Scientific American 220 ( 1 969) 54-64.

192

Notes to Pages 97-111

Chapter 6 1. A comprehensive list of all locations put forward for Atlantis in the past can be found in L. Sprague de Camp's Lost Continents (1970) 314-18. 2. For example, Byron Khun de Prorok, Mysterious Sahara ( 1929 ). 3. Herodotus 4.184 (translation by George Rawlinson, 1942). 4. For the passages from Hanno and Skylax, see de Camp, Lost Continents, 278 and 295. 5. See James Bramwell, Lost Atlantis (1974) 11o, foran examination of Berlioux' theory. 6. de Camp, Lost Continents, 184. 7. Ibid. 8. In the Montreal Gazette, Aug. 26, 1977. 9. V. Berard, "L'Atlantide de Platon," Annales de gdographie 38 (1929) 193-205. so. Prorok, Mysterious Sahara. t 1. For example, L. Taylor Hansen, The Ancient Atlantic (1969). 12. Henri Lhote, The Search for the Tassili Frescoes (1959) 184. 13. Ibid., 19-22 and 178-90. 14. de Camp, Lost Continents, 183. 15. See The Oxford Annotated Bible (revised standard version) ed. May and Metzger (Oxford, 1962) 924. 16. As recorded by Charles Berlitz in The Mystery of Atlantis (1976 ed.) 126-27. Berlitz does not provide a reference to the original work. 17. A similar situation later arose at Ostia, the port city of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber River. 18. F. Gidon in L'Atlantide (1935), his French translation of Alexander Bessmertny's Das Atlantis-Rätsel (1933), added an appendix containing his own theory. 19. As stated by de Camp, Lost Continents, 168. 20. A. G. Galanopoulos and E. Bacon, Atlantis: The Truth behind the Legend (1969) 80. 21. See J. Spanuth, Atlantis: The Mystery Unravelled (1956) and Atlantis: Heimat, Reich and Schicksal der Germanen (1965). The precise nature of these alleged submerged ruins was never clearly defined. 22. It is worth noting that Velikovsky takes a similar view, but places all such events earlier, c. 1500 B.C. 23. Galanopoulos and Bacon, Atlantis: The Truth, 82. 24. Ibid., 80. 25. Ibid., 83. 26. A. Roberts, Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain (1974) xi. 27. Another ancient name for Hyperborea was Thule. For the Hyperboreans, see Hymn Hom. Bacch. 28-29; Pindar Pyth. so; Herodotus 4.33• 28. As recorded by de Camp, Lost Continents, 178-79. 29. See John F. Dewey, "Plate Tectonics," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground (1976) 44. 30. See Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods? (1971 ed.) 14-16. 31. The present ice cap is believed to have been in place for some 25 million years. 32. See H. T. Wilkins, The Mysteries of Ancient South America (1956) and Secret Cities of Old South America (1950). 33 For the tale of Scheria, see Homer's Odyssey, books 6, 7, and 13.

Notes to Pages 111-3o

1 93

34. de Camp, Lost Continents, 197. 35. Walter Leaf, Homer and History (1915). 36. J. V. Luce, The End of Atlantis (197o, first published in 1969); Galanopoulos and Bacon, Atlantis: The Truth behind the Legend (1969); and James Mayor, Jr., Voyage to Atlantis (1969 ).

Chapter 7 1. D. B. Vitaliano, Legends of the Earth (1973) 226-27. 2. M. Nafi Toksöz, "The Subduction of the Lithosphere," in Continents Adrift and Continents Aground (1976 ) 113. 3. L. D. Leet and S. Judson, Physical Geology2 ( 1 958 ) 53-54. 4. B. A. Bolt, W. L. Horn, G. A. Macdonald, and R. F. Scott, Geological Hazards2 (1977) 67. 5. Ibid., 11o. 6. Ibid., 82. 7. Ibid., 70. 8. Ibid., III. 9. Ibid., 74. 10. S. Thorarinsson, "Damage Caused by Tephra Fall in Some Big Icelandic Eruptions and its Relation to the Thickness of the Tephra Layers," in Acta of the First International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera ( 197 [) 213-36. Hereafter referred to as Acta. [ 1. Leet and Judson, Physical Geology2, 55. 12. Feb. 16, 1978. 13. Bolt et al., Geological Hazards2, 79. 14. Ibid., 79-80. 15. Ibid., 80. 16. Leet and Judson, Physical Geology2, 57. 17. Bolt et al., Geological Hazards2, 112. 18. Ibid., 65. 19. Ibid., 17. 20. Gordon B. Oakeshott, Volcanoes and Earthquakes (1976) 18. 21. D. B. Vitaliano and C. J. Vitaliano, "Plinian Eruptions, Earthquakes, and Santorin: A Review," in Acta, 94. 22. Bolt et al., Geological Hazards2, 114-15. 23. Ibid., 116-17. 24. See Vitaliano's Legends, 123. 25. M. Neumann Van Padang, "Two Catastrophic Eruptions in Indonesia," in Acta, 51-63. 26. Bolt et al., Geological Hazards2, 119. 27. Neumann Van Padang, "Two Catastrophic Eruptions," 55. 28. D. P. McKenzie, "Plate Tectonics of the Mediterranean Region," Nature 226 (1970) 242. 29. Herodotus 4.147. 3o. See R. W. Van Bemmelen, "Four Volcanic Outbursts that Influenced Human History," in Acta, 5-41. 31. See Bolt et al., Geological Hazards2, 120. 32. D. Ninkovich and B. C. Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," in Submarine Geology and Geophysics (1965) 41 3-53. 33. Van Bemmelen, "Four Volcanic Outbursts," 26-41.

194

Notes to Pages 130-41

Ninkovich and Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," 435. Vitaliano, Legends, 192-93. Ibid., 194. J. S. Bowman, Guide to Santorini ( 1 974) 52. G. Weinstein, of the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, The University of Pennsylvania, in a private communication dated June 3, 1977. 39. S. Marinatos, "Geology and Archaeology of a Volcano," in Acta, 410. 40. S. Hood, "Late Bronze Age Destructions at Knossos," in Acta, 379. 41. L. R. Palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans2 (1965 ); idem, A New Guide to the Palace of Knossos (1969 ); idem and J. Boardman, On the Knossos Tablets (1963 ). 42. S. Hood notes that "while many vases [of LMIB] are still adorned with designs of reeds or flowers, some boast `Marine Style' decoration" (The Minoans [1971] 44; italics mine). 43. Vitaliano, Legends, 206. Ø. For Vitaliano's view, see Legends, 209-17; for Pomerance's approach, see "The Final Collapse of Santorini (Thera )," in Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 26 (197o). 45• S. Marinatos, "The Volcanic Destruction of Minoan Crete," Antiquity 1 3 ( 1939) 425-39. 46. In Submarine Geology and Geophysics. 47. D. L. Page, The Santorini Volcano and the Destruction of Minoan Crete (197o) 39. It should be added, however, that the precise depth of any Theran ash on Crete remains controversial. 48. Ninkovich and Herzen in "Santorini Tephra" estimate an arrival time of twenty to thirty minutes (p. 438). 49. R. B. Seager, Excavations in the Island of Pseira, Crete ( 1910) 15-23. 5o. Page, The Santorini Volcano, 42. 51. Ninkovich and Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," 44o. 52. Arthur Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-36) 2.32o. 53• Ninkovich and Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," Øo. 54. Vitaliano, Legends, 196. 55• P. Hedervåri, "Volcanophysical Investigations on the Energetics of the Minoan Eruption of Volcano Santorin," Bulletin volcanologique 32 ( 1968 ) 439-61. 56. S. Hood, "The International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera, 15th-23rd September 1969," Kadmos 9 (197o) tot. 57. Hood, The Minoans, 57. 58. J. Healy, "Geological Observations on Thera" in Acta, 182. See also G. C. Georgalas, "L'Eruption Minoenne du volcan de Santorin"; Neumann Van Padang, "Two Catastrophic Eruptions in Indonesia"; and Van Bemmelen, "Four Volcanic Outbursts," all in Acta. 59. This view is advocated by the current excavator of Akrotiri, Christos Doumas, in "The Minoan Eruption of the Santorini Volcano," Antiquity 48 ( 1 974) 110-14. 6o. D. Ninkovich and J. D. Hays, "Tectonic Setting of Mediterranean Volcanoes," in Acta, 111-35; D. B. Vitaliano in a private communication dated Dec. 1, 1977. 61. Hood, The Minoans, 1 55. 62. N. Platon, Zakros (1971) 107, 121, 151, 286. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Notes to Pages 141-56

195

63. As suggested by Vitaliano, Legends, 209. 64. Ibid., 252. 65. A. G. Galanopoulos, "The Eastern Trilogy in the Bronze Age," in Acta, 184-97. Chapter 8 J. V. Luce, The End of Atlantis (197o) 86. F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Thera (1899-19o9). Luce, The End of Atlantis, 89-9o. Phylakopi on Melos, and Trianda on Rhodes. S. Marinatos, "The Volcanic Destruction of Minoan Crete," Antiquity 13 ( 1939) 425-39• 6. S. Marinatos, Life and Art in Prehistoric Thera (1971) g. 7. For the 1967 season as a whole, see S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera: First Preliminary Report (1968). 8. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera II (1969) 53. 9. Ibid., 54. to. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera III (197o) 8. 11. Ibid. 12. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera IV (1971) 49. 13. It is possible that two animals originally graced the eastern wall, the traces of one having entirely disappeared. 14. Marinatos, Life and Art, 2 I. 15. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VI ( 1 974) 36-38. 16. Marinatos, Thera IV, 20. 17. S. Marinatos, A Brief Guide to the Temporary Exhibition of the Antiquities of Thera (1971) 19. 18. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera V (1972) 39. 19. Ibid., 41. 2o. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 19. 22. Marinatos, Thera VI, 36. 23. Ibid., 38. 24. Ibid. 25. The west wall of the room seems to have been totally obliterated by the catastrophe; whether or not it too bore the fresco is thus impossible to determine. 26. Marinatos, Thera VI, 43. 27. Ibid., 56. 28. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VII (1976) 23. 29. Ibid., 27-28. 3o. Ibid., 34. 31. Marinatos' estimate, according to P. Matzaroglou, Santorini (Anon, n.d.) 26, and M. A. Edey, Lost World of the Aegean (New York: Time-Life, 1 975) 99• 32. A. G. Galanopoulos and E. Bacon, Atlantis: The Truth behind the Legend ( 1969 ) 33-3933. Ibid., 17o. 34• Ibid., 127 35. Ibid. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Notes to Pages 160-69

196 Chapter 9

r. See J. V. Luce, The End of Atlantis (1970) 38-43; R W. Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete (1962 ) r o6-i r; A. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-36) 2.534-4o and 655-59. 2. See Luce, The End of Atlantis, 14o; A. G. Galanopoulos and E. Bacon, Atlantis: The Truth behind the Legend (1969 ) 133-34; S. Marinatos, Some Words about the Legend of Atlantis (1971) 46. 3. Marinatos, Some Words, 26. 4. D. R. Theocharis, "The Neolithic Period" in Prehistory and Protohistory (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon-Heinemann, 1974) 56-93. 5. P. B. S. Andrews, "Larger than Africa and Asia?" Greece and Rome 1 4 ( 1967) 76-79. 6. Thucydides 1.4 (Crawley translation). 7. Luce, The End of Atlantis, g8-loo. 8. For Mycenaean Athens, see P. MacKendrick, The Greek Stones Speak (1966) 123-53; and R. E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (1978). 9. See John Boardman, Pre-Classical (1967) 15-51; R. Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art (1967); S. Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae (1960) . to. For the legend of Theseus, see Plutarch's Theseus; also M. Reinhold, Past and Present (1972) 186-96. 11. M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek2 (1973). 12. Such as the famous gold Vapheio Cups, thought to be Minoan exports to the mainland; see S. Hood, The Home of the Heroes: The Aegean before the Greeks (1967) 102-4. 13. See Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art, 103-22. 14. Costis Davaras, Guide to Cretan Antiquities (1976) 195. 15. S. Hood, The Minoans (1871) 15; J. D. S. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete (1963 ed.) chap. 1. 16. Davaras, Guide, lot; Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 40-44; Pendlebury, Archaeology of Crete, 6. 17. Davaras, Guide, 3. 18. Ibid., 333. 19. C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation (1972) 225-64, especially table 14.IX on p. 251. 20. Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 40-41. 21. For the apparent supremacy of Knossos, see Hood, The Minoans, 116, and Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 257-58. 22. The key source for Knossos as a whole is, of course, Sir Arthur Evans' The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-36). 23. S. Alexiou, Minoan Civilization (n.d.) chap. 5; Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 199-231. 24. See Evans, Palace of Minos, 1.423-47 passim. 25. Davaras, Guide, 327. 26. For the name "Poseidon," see Ventris and Chadwick, Documents, 126. 27. Davaras, Guide, 8-13. 28. Ibid., 98; see also Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 42-44. 29. See Luce, The End of Atlantis, 126-27. 3o. Davaras, Guide, 84.

Chapter 10 T. L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents (1970) 220.

Notes to Pages 169-81

1 97

2. E. A. Freeman, Sicily (1892) 15. 3. Freeman, Sicily, 17-20; R. King, Sicily (1973) 21-37. 4. Diogenes Laertius 3.18. 5. See M. Guido, Sicily: An Archaeological Guide (1977) too. 6. Thucydides 6.1-7.87. 7. M. I. Finley, Ancient Sicily (1868) 30; Guido, Sicily, 161. 8. W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) 2.1057. g. Diodorus Siculus 1 4.7. to. Cicero Against Verres 2.4.53; Guido, Sicily, 179. it. Smith, Dictionary, 2.1056; italics mine. 12. A basic source is Cicero's Against Verres 2.4.53-58; see also Guido, Sicily, 176-79. 13. Diodorus Siculus 14.7, 41. 14. Finley, Ancient Sicily, 80. 15. Diodorus Siculus 26.19; Cicero Against Verres 2 .4.52-53. 16. Cicero Against Verses 2.4.53 (translation by L. H. G. Greenwood). 17. See Plutarch's Life of Dion. 18. Diodorus Siculus 14.47-53; Finley, Ancient Sicily, 81. 1g. Diodorus Siculus 15.13 (translation by C. H. Oldfather). 20. Diodorus Siculus 15.14 (translation by C. H. Oldfather). 21. Finley, Ancient Sicily, 70-71; Freeman, Sicily, 109-46. 22. Finley, Ancient Sicily, 88; see also Plutarch's Life of Dion. 23. See Freeman, Sicily, 59. 24. Diodorus Siculus 15.48 (translation by C. L. Sherman); italics mine. 25. Smith, Dictionary, 1.1034. 26. Ibid., 1.252. 27. Thucydides 2.32. 28. Thucydides 3.89 (Crawley translation). 29. Strabo 1.3.20. 3o. Herodotus' The Persian Wars remains the basic source for the PersianAthenian conflict. 31. Thucydides 1.24. 32. For a comparable analysis, see W. Welliver's Character, Plot and Thought in Plato's "Timaeus-Critias" (1977) 41-43. 33. For the tradition that the Apaturia was a "Feast of Deception," see ibid., 20 21, and Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopaedie, s.v. "Apaturia."

Selected Bibliography Primary Sources Cicero. The Verrine Orations. Translated by L. H. G. Greenwood. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1960. Diodorus Siculus. The Library of History. Vol. 6, translated by C. H. Oldfather. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1954. .The Library of History. Vol. 7, translated by C. L. Sherman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1952. . The Library of History. Vol. 11, translated by F. R. Walton. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1957. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Philosophers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964. Herodotus. The Persian Wars. Translated by George Rawlinson, introduction by F. R. B. Godolphin. New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1942. Hesiod. Thegony. Translated by N. O. Brown. New York: BobbsMerrill, 1953. Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by E. V. Rieu. Middlesex: Penguin, 1946. Pausanias. Guide to Greece. Translated by P. Levi. Middlesex: Penguin, 1971. Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. . The Dialogues of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. London: Sphere Books, 197o.

Selected Bibliography

200

Plato. The Epistles. Translated by J. Harward. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1932. . Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1 974. Plutarch. Lives. Translated by John Dryden. New York : Modern Library, n.d. Strabo. Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones. London: Heinemann, 1 954-61. Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley. New York : E. P. Dutton, 1963. Secondary Sources Acta of the First International Scientific Congress on the Volcano

of Thera. Athens: T.A.P., 1971. Alexiou, Stylianos. Minoan Civilization. Translated from the Greek by C. Ridley. Heraclion: Spyros Alexiou Sons, n.d. Andrews, P. B. S. "Larger than Africa and Asia?" Greece and Rome 1 4 (1967) 76-79. Berlitz, Charles. The Mystery of Atlantis. New York: Avon, 1976. Biegen, C. W., and Rawson, Marion. The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. Boardman, John. Pre-Classical. Middlesex: Penguin, 1967. Bolt, B. A.; Horn, W. L.; Macdonald, G. A.; and Scott, R. F. Geological Hazards'. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1 977. Bowman, J. S. Guide to Santorini. Athens: Efstathiadis, 1974. Bramwell, James. Lost Atlantis. California: Newcastle, 1974. Davaras, Costis. Guide to Cretan Antiquities. New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1976.

Davies, J. K. Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. de Camp, L. Sprague. Lost Continents. New York : Dover, 197o. De Langhe, R. "Myth, Ritual, and Kingship in the Ras Shamra Tablets." In Myth, Ritual and Kingship, edited by S. H. Hooke, pp. 122-48. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. New York: Steiner, 1971. Doumas, Christos. `The Minoan Eruption of the Santorini Volcano." Antiquity 48 ( 1 974) 110-14. Evans, Arthur. The Palace of Minos at Knossos. 4 vols. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1921-36. Evans-Pritchard, E. The Zande Trickster. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Finley, M. I. Ancient Sicily. New York: Viking, 1968. Fontenrose, J. E. The Ritual Theory of Myth. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966. Freeman, E. A. Sicily. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892.

Selected Bibliography

201

Freud, S. The Collected Papers. Vol. 4. London: Leonard and Woolf, 1925. Galanopoulos, A. G., and Bacon, E. Atlantis: The Truth behind the Legend. London : Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1969. Gidon, F. L'Atlantide. Paris: Payot, 1935. Guido, M. Sicily: An Archaeological Guide. London: Faber and Faber, 1977. Hansen, L. Taylor. The Ancient Atlantic. Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1969. Havelock, E. A. Preface to Plato. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. Hedervåri, P. "Volcanophysical Investigations on the Energetics of the Minoan Eruption of Volcano Santorin." Bulletin volcanologique 32 ( 1968) 439-61. Higgins, Reynold. Minoan and Mycenaean Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1967. Hiller von Gaertringen, F. Thera. 4 vols. Berlin: Reimer, 1899-1909. Hood, Sinclair. The Home of the Heroes: The Aegean before the Greeks. London : Thames and Hudson, 1967. . "The International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera, 1 5th-23rd September 1969." Kadmos g (1970) 101. . The Minoans. London: Thames and Hudson, 1971. Hutchinson, R. W. Prehistoric Crete. Middlesex: Penguin, 1962. King, Russell. Sicily. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973. Kirk, G. S. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1970. . The Nature of Greek Myths. Middlesex: Penguin, 1974. Lang, Andrew. Custom and Myth. London : Longman, Green, 1884. . Myth, Ritual and Religion. London: Longmans, Green, 1887. Lanning, E. P. Peru before the Incas. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1967. Leaf, Walter. Homer and History. London: Macmillan, 1915. Leet, L. D., and Judson, S. Physical Geology2. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958. Lhote, Henri. The Search for the Tassili Frescoes. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1959. Linforth, Ivan. Solon the Athenian. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1919. Luce, J. V. The End of Atlantis. London: Paladin, 197o. . Homer and the Heroic Age. London : Thames and Hudson, 1975. MacKendrick, Paul. The Greek Stones Speak. New York : Mentor, 1966. McKenzie, D. P. "Plate Tectonics of the Mediterranean Region." Nature 226 (1970) 242. Malinowski, B. Magic, Science and Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1948.

202

Selected Bibliography

Marinatos, Spyridon. "The Volcanic Destruction of Minoan Crete." Antiquity 13 ( 1939) 425-39. . Crete and Mycenae. New York: Abrams, 196o. . Excavations at Thera, I—VII. Athens, 1968-76. . A Brief Guide to the Temporary Exhibition of the Antiquities of Thera. Athens, 1971. . Life and Art in Prehistoric Thera. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. . Some Words about the Legend of Atlantis. Athens: Archaiologicon Deltion, 1971. Mayor, James, Jr. Voyage to Atlantis. New York: Souvenir Press, 1969. Ninkovich, D., and Heezen, B. C. "Santorini Tephra." In Submarine Geology and Geophysics, edited by W. F. Whittard and R. Bradshaw, pp. 413-53. London: Butterworths, 1965. Oakeshott, Gordon B. Volcanoes and Earthquakes. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Page, D. L. The Santorini Volcano and the Destruction of Minoan Crete. London : The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 197o. . History and the Homeric Epic. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972. Palmer, L. R. Mycenaeans and Minoans2. New York: Knopf, 1965. . A New Guide to the Palace at Knossos. London : Faber and Faber, 1969. , and Boardman, J. On the Knossos Tablets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963. Pendlebury, J. D. S. The Archaeology of Crete. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1963. Platon, N. Zakros. New York: Scribner's, 1971. Pomerance, Leon. "The Final Collapse of Santorini (Thera) ." In Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 26 (197o) . Prorok, Byron Khun de. Mysterious Sahara. Chicago: Reilly and Lee, 1929. Reinhold, M. Past and Present. Toronto: Hakkert, 1972. Renfrew, Colin. The Emergence of Civilisation. London: Methuen, 1972. Roberts, Anthony. Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain. Wales: Unicorn, 1974. Rosenmeyer, T. G. "The Family of Critias." American Journal of Philology 7o (1949) 404-10. Seager, R. B. Excavations in the Island of Pseira, Crete. Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1910. Seyfert, C. K., and Sirkin, L. A. Earth History and Plate Tectonics. New York : Harper and Row, 1973. Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. 2 vols. London : Walton and Maberly, 1854. Spanuth, J. Atlantis: The Mystery Unravelled. London: Arco, 1956.

Selected Bibliography

203

Spanuth, J. Atlantis:Heimat, Reich and Schicksal der Germanen. Tübingen : Grabert-Verlag, 1965. Spence, Lewis. The Problem of Atlantis. London: W. Rider, 1924. Steiger, Brad. Atlantis Rising. New York: Dell, 1973. Stewart, J. A. The Myths of Plato. Sussex: Centaur Press, 1g6o reprint. Tarling, D. H., and Tarling, M. P. Continental Drift. Middlesex: Pelican, 1972. Taylor, A. E. Plato. London : Methuen, 1926. Velikovsky, I. Worlds in Collision. London: Gollancz, 1950. Ventris, M., and Chadwick, J. Documents in Mycenaean Greek2. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1973. Vitaliano, Dorothy B. Legends of the Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. Voegelin, E. Plato. Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, i g66. von Däniken, E. Chariots of the Gods? New York: Bantam Books, 1971. von Hagen, V. W. The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas. London : Thames and Hudson, 1962. Welliver, W. Character, Plot and Thought in Plato's "TimaeusCritias." Leiden: Brill, 1 977. Wilkins, H. T. Secret Cities of Old South America. London : W. Rider, 1950. . The Mysteries of Ancient South America. London: Citadel, 1956. Wilson, J. Tuzo, ed. Continents Adrift and Continents Aground. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976. Wycherley, R. E. The Stones of Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Zhirov, N. Atlantis. Moscow: Progress, 1970.

Index

Academy, 33, 34, 169 Achilles, 51, 56, 65 Acragas, 170 Aegeis, 127 Aeschylus, 6o, 66 Agadir, 99 Agamemnon, 54, 55, 6o Ahaggar Mountains, tot Akrotiri, 112-13, 133-34, 140-41; "African" fresco, 146, 148, 150; Antelopes fresco, 147-48; Blue Monkeys fresco, 147, 148; Boxing Children fresco, 147-48, 150, 151; connections of, with Africa, 148, 150, 151; current excavations at, 1 45-54; description of Bronze Age city at site of, 154-56; earthquakes at, 146, 147, 154, 157; Expedition fresco, 151-52, 153; first excavations at, 143-45; Gathering of Crocus fresco, 154; Ladies fresco, 149; Lilies fresco, 1 47, 1 48-49; West House at, 1 49-53, 1 55; xest6 3 at, 1 53-54. See also Thera Alcibiades, 172 Alcinous, 3, I I I Algeria, 97, 100 Amasis, 9, 37-40 America: as Atlantis, 1-2, 110 Amerinds, 2, 82, 84-86, 91, 110 Amnisos, 113, 132, 134-36, 137, 138, 1 45

Andrews, P. B. S., 161 Antarctica, 97, 109 Antilia, 84, I10 Apaturia, 9, 43, 181 Apollodorus, 8o Archias, 176 Arctic, 108-g Arena!, 121 Arethusa, Fountain of, 172 Ariadne, 56 Aristophanes, 75-76 Aristotle, 1, 35, 38, 39 Asia Minor, 12, 16, 19, 35, 79, 8o, 103, I27, 161, 165 Aspronisi, 128, 130 Atalante, 178-79, 181 Atarantians, 98, 99 Athens, 179-80, 184; conflict of, with Crete, 162; in Critias, 16-19; and Syracuse, 172, 175; in Timaeus, II-15 Atlantes, 97, 98, 99 Atlantic Ocean, i, 2, 12, 21, 79-96 Atlantioi, gg Atlantis: in Africa, 97-101; in America, 1-2, 110; in Antarctica, 97, log; in Arctic, 1o8-g; in Atlantic Ocean, 1, 3, 12-13, 79-96, 159; in Britain, 97, 107-8; central island of, 20-21, 23-25; in Crete, I12-13, 159-68; in Critias, 15-29; and Diffusionism, 4; in Europe, 104-8;

2o6

Index

and the occult, 6-7; plain of, 20, 25-26, 8o, 1 56, 157, 162-63, 165;

royal city of, 2 3-25, 115, 156, 157, 165-66, 170, 172-74; in Scheria, I I t; in Sicily, 169-76; size of, 8o; in Spain, Io1-4; in Thera, 143, 154-58; in Timaeus, 8-15; volcanic destruction of, I15 Atlas, 21, 22, 165, 176, 179 Atlas Mountains, 97, 99 Azores, 81, 87, 88, 95, 96 Aztecs, 84, 85 Babylon, 81 Bacon, Sir Francis, 2, 3, 110 Baikie, James, 112 Bailly, J. S., ,o8 Beaumont, W. C., 107-8 Berard, V., too Bering Strait, 82, 85, 91 Bcrlioux, F., 99 Berlitz, Charles, 7, 88, 8g Bermuda Triangle, 7, 90 Bezymianny, 12t Bimini, 88, 90 Blavatsky, H. P., 6-7 Biegen, Carl, 56 Borchardt, P., 99-10o Brazil, I 10 Britain, 97, 107-8 Brittany, 104, 107 Bulls : on Atlantis, 27, 166 Bura, 177 Burnet, J., 43-44 Cadiz, 102 Cadmus, 54, 71 Canary Islands, 82 Carthage, too, 11 1, 1 75 Cerne, 98-99 Cicero, 174 Cleito, 20, 24, 156, 165, 1 73, 1 76

Continental shelves, 88, 89 Corfu, I I I Corinth, 176-78 Crantor, t Crete, 7, 56, 71, 116, 127-28, 131, 1 45, 146, 156, 158, 173, 180; as Atlantis, 111-13, 159-68; effects of Theran eruption on, 1 34-42; pottery styles of, 132-34

Critias, 8, 9, 15, 31, 34, 35, 36, 42-44, 66, 77, 79, 181 Critias, 8, 40, 42, 79, 8o, 81, 98, 115, 160, 161, 166, 169, 174, 1 75, 176, 184; translation of, 15-29 Croesus, 35, 54, 6o, 69 Cronos, 61, 63, 7o, 71, 72-73 Cyclades, 161, 162 Cyprus, 161, 162, 165 Davies, J. K., 44 De Camp, L. Sprague, 85, 86, 91, 99, 101, 169 De Langhe, R., 5o Deucalion, I0, 19, 48, 72, 106 Diffusionism, 4, 48-49, 82-83 Diodorus Siculus, 31, 33, 35, 98, 99, 1 74, 1 75, 1 76-77 Diogenes Laertius, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39 Dion, 33-34 Dionysius I, 33, 42, 169, 172, 173, 175-76, 183 Dionysius II, 33-34, 169, 1 74, 176, 183-84 Donnelly, Ignatius, 2-4, 48, 81-88, 90--91 , 93, 94, 95, 184, 185 Dropides, 9, 31, 35-36, 43-44 Earthquakes, 13, 16, 19, 81, 115, 12I-22, 137-38, 141, 166, 16 7, 1 70,

176-79 Egypt, 3, 4, 9-12, 22, 81, 83-84, 9 1, I o6, 159-60, 165, 167; Plato in, 32; Solon in, 37-40; and Thera, 130, 1 42, 1 57 Elephants, 22, 105, 167 English Channel, 104-5, 107 Er, myth of, 67-68 Etna, Mount, 33, 1o6, 118, 170 Euboea, 162, 178 Euhemerus, 49 Eumelus, 22, 176 Euthyphro, 61 Evans, Sir Arthur, 7, 55-56, 112, 1 32-34, 1 38, 145, 168 Evans-Pritchard, E., 46 Evolutionism, 4, 48 Exekestides, 35-36 Exodus, 1a6, 142 Ezekiel, 102

Index

207

Fouqué, F., IØ Freud, S., 51 Frobenius, L., 101 Frost, K. T., 112

Jessen, 0., 103 Jonah, 102 Jowett, B., 8 Jung, C., 51

Gaia, 51, 54 Galanopoulos, A. G., 7, 105, 107, 1 56-57 Gelon, 172 Geomythology, 57 Gibraltar, Straits of, 97, 99, lox, 103, 138, 161 Gidon, F., 104-5 Godron, D. A., Io1 Gondwanaland, 94 Gorceix, H., 144 Gorgias, 65-66, 67, 68 Gyges, 68-6g

Kamenis, 131, 156 Katmai, Mount, 119, 120, I21 "Keftiu," 160, 167 Kirk, G. S., 49, 50, 53-54, 57, 60, 64, 66, 69, 77 Klamath Indians, 124 Knossos, 56, 112, 132, 1 33, 1 34, 1 37,

Hallam, A., 92 Hanno, g8 Hawaiian Islands, 117, 118, 132 Hedervåri, P., 138 Heezen, B. C., 136, 138 Heimaey, 121 Hekla, 119 Helgoland, 105-7, tob Helice, 177, 181 Hennig, R., 103 Heraklion, 56, 137 Herculaneum, 123 Hermocrates, 8, 42, 1 75 Hermocrates, 15 Herodotus, 38, 39, 40, 98, 99, 102, 128, 140 Hesiod, 9, 59, 66 Hiller von Gaertringen, F., 144 Homer, 9, 53, 55, 56, 66, 110-12 Hood, S., 139, 141 Hudson River, 88-8g Hyperborea, 7, Io6, Io8 Iceland, 95, 106, 116, 117, 118, I 19, I20

Ida, Mount, 163 India, 81, 83, 90 Ireland, 104, Io8 Isaiah, 102 Japan, 120, 122 Jeremiah, 102

138, 1 39, 1 41 , 1 42, 145, 162, 164, 165-66, 168

Kommos, 166 Krakatoa, 120, 122, 123, 125-27, 128, 130, 141, 167

Lamington, 12I Landa, Diego de, 2 Laurasia, 94 Laws, 61-62, 63, 65, 71-73 Leaf, Walter, 111-12 Lemuria, 7 Levi-Strauss, C., 52 Lhote, H., Io1 Libya, 12, 16, 79, 8o, 99, 103, 151, 152, 161, 175

Linear B, 138, 162, 165, ,66 Linforth, Ivan, 32, 35, 40, 41 Locri, 42, 176 Locris, 178 Luzon, 120 Lysis, 62 MacNeish, R. S., 91 Madeira, 81 Mallia, 112, 138, 165 Mamet, H., 144 Marinatos, Spyridon, 7, 112-13, 133, 134, 138; at Akrotiri, 145-54 Mayas, 3, 83-84, 85 Mazama, 123, 124, 125 Medinet Habu, 106, 107 Melos, 145, 162 Mesa Vouno, 144 Messara, 145, 163, 166 Mexico, 81, 84, 91 Mid-Atlantic ridge, 87-89, 91, 94-96, I16 Minos, 56, 65, 66, 112, 132, 140, 162,

208

Index

165 Minotaur, 56, 162, 166 More, Sir Thomas, 2 Morocco, 97, 99 Motya, 175 Mummification, 83 Mycenaeans, 55, 56-57, 138-40, 142 Myth: attitude of Plato towards, 61-64; definition of, 45-47; Greek, 53-54; historicity of, 54-57; interpretation of, 47-53; use of, by Plato, 64-77 New Zealand, 132 Nigeria, lot Nilsson, M. P., 56-57 Ninkovich, D., 136, 138, 141 North Pole, 108-9 North Sea, 104-5, 107 Oakeshott, G. B., 122 Oedipus, 50, 51, 54, 6o ,65 Opuntian Gulf, 178 Orichalkos, 22, 24, 27, 105, 164, 172 Ouranos, 5 1, 54, 61, 63, 75 Page, D. L., 137 Palmer, L. R., 133 Pangaea, 93, 96, 109 Paricutin, 118, II9 Pelee, Mount, 120-21 Peloponnesian War, 31, 42, 172, 178, 179, 180 Peoples of the Sea, t o6, 107 Perseus, 47, 50, 54 Persian Wars, 179-80 Peru, 3, 81, 83-84, 85, 86, 110 Phaeacians, Io6, III Phaedo, 66-67, 68 Phaedrus, 62, 73, 74-75 Phaestos, 107, 112, 137, 138, 139, 145, 165, 166 Phaethon, to, Io6 Philebus, 73-74 Phira, 129 Pillars of Heracles, 12, 16, 22, 79, 8o, 98, 101, 102, 104, 107, 175 Piri Reis, tog Pisistratus, 38, 39, 40 Plate tectonics, 92-96, 104, 109, 116, I27

Plato, t, 8, 2 9, 57, 59, 79, 8o, 81, 89; and Atalante, 178-79; attitude of, towards myth, 61-64; and Corinth, 176-78; in Egypt, 32; life of, 31-34; myths in writings of, 64-76; and Peloponnesian War, 180; and Persian Wars, 179; and Sicily, 32-34, 169, 1 70, 1 74, 175-76, 18081; use of myth by, 76-77; and utopias, 4o-41, 183-84 Pliny, 98, 99, 123 Plutarch, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40 Politicus, 63, 69-71, 72, 76 Pomerance, Leon, 134 Pompeii, 119, 123 Poseidon, 20, 24, 51, 56, 8o, I01, I II, 156, 165, 166, 168, 172, 173, 176, 177, 180 Project FAMOUS, 95-96 Prometheus, 49, 52, 54, 6o, 65, 70, 73 Prorok, Byron Khun de, 101 Protagoras, 63, 73 Pseira, 1 37, 138 Puyehue, I2I Pylos, 5 6, 57 Pyramids, 4, 83-84 Pythagoreans, 33, 42 Qabes, Gulf of, 99-10o Rameses III, Io6 Reinhold, M., 52 Republic, 40, 6r, 62-64, 67-69 Rhodes, 121, 145, 162 Roberts, A., io8 Rosenmeyer, T. G., 44 Sahara, 101, 151 Sais, 9, 37, 38, 39 Salamis, 37 Santorini. See Thera Sargasso Sea, 88, 90 Scheria, Io6, III Schliemann, Heinrich, 6, 55, 56 Schliemann, Paul, 6 Schmalz, R., too Schulten, A., 103 Scott-Elliot, W., 7 Selinus, 171 Sicily, 42, 67, io6, 111, 162, 169-72, 175-76, 180-81; Catanian plain of,

Index 170, 193; Plato in, 32-34. See also Syracuse Skylax, g8, 99 Socrates, 32, 42, 61, 62, 63, 65-68, 69, 70, 73-76, 18o; in Timaeus, 8-15, 5I Solon, 31, 68, 8o, 105, 159, 160, 161; in Critias, 20; in Egypt, 37-40; life of, 34-42; in Timaeus, 8-15> 43 Soufrie re, 120 Spain, 96, 101-4, Ile) Spanuth, J., 105-7, I08 Spence, L., 84-85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 110, 113 Spitsbergen, I08-g Stewart, J. A., 71 Strabo, IO2, I03, III, 178 Surtsey, 132 Symposium, 64, 75-76 Syracuse, 33-34, 42, 169-76, 1 80, 181, 183-84; Achradina, 172, 174; Epipolae, 173; Neapolis, 174; Ortygia, 172-73, 174; Tycha, 174. See also Sicily Taal, 119, 120 Tambora, 120, 123, 124-25, 126, 127, 136, 138

Tarshish, 102 Tartessos, 8o, 102-4, I I I Tassili Mountains, tot Taylor, A. E., 72 Taylor, F. B., 92 Thamus, 62, 74-75 Thebes, 55, 57, 6o Thera, 8, 106, 107, 112-13, 121, 160, 162, 165, 167, 168, 180; as Atlantis, 1 43, 156-57; Bronze Age eruption of, 127-31; date of eruption of,

209

131-34; effects of eruption of, 13442; excavations on, 143-58. See also Akrotiri Therasia, 128, 130, 131, 1 43-44, 145, 156, 157 Theseus, 17, 54, 56, 162 Theuth, 62, 73-75 Thucydides, 161-62, 178 Timaeus, 8, 15, 42, 176 Timaeus, I, 32, 34, 35, 38-39, 40, 42, 44, 51, 64, 66, 68, 79, 8o, 98, 115, 122, 160, 161, 169, 175, 184; translation of, 8-15 Trojan War, 47, 55, 72, 140 Tsunami, 122, 123, 126, 127, 130-31, 1 36-37, 1 40, 1 41 , 1 42, 167, 1 77, 178 Tuaregs, tot Tunisia, 97, 99-100 Tyrrhenia, 1 3, 22, 1 75 Velikovsky, I., 7, 106 Vesuvius, 118, 119, 121, 123-24, 125 Vitaliano, Dorothy, 57, 130-31, 134, 138, 141, 142 Voegelin, E., 76 Volcanoes: effects of eruptions, 11822; nature of, 115-18; Plinian eruptions, 123-31 Von Däniken, E., 7, log Wegener, A. L., 92-94 Wilkins, H. T., 110 Wilson, J. Tuzo, 93 Zahn, R., 1 44 Zakros, 1 32, 1 33, 138, 140, 141, 165 Zeus, 28, 4 1, 48, 49, 51, 61, 62, 65, 70, 73, 75, 76