fiction, which Plato devised to impart moral lessons for the Greeks, but countless others—including archaeologists, scholars, and researchers—are convinced that Atlantis actually existed.
Plato was born around 428 B.C. in Athens. After his father died, Plato’s mother remarried a politically influential man who urged Plato to enter Greek politics. But Plato instead joined his two older brothers and became a student of Socrates. Plato, considered a moralist, was deeply concerned with precise understandings and definitions in both science and philosophy. Eight years after Socrates’ death, Plato founded a school in Athens, the Academy, which was the forerunner of modern universities. He directed the school and lectured frequently in science, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Plato’s lectures were never documented. What does survive serves as a very valuable contribution to our understanding of the ancient world. For example, most of what we know about Socrates, who died in 399 B.C., was recorded in Plato’s Dialogues. While many philosophers believe that Plato’s accounts of Socrates are perhaps slanted toward making Socrates a more admirable person, no one believes that the dialogues about Socrates were a complete fiction. Most of his other dialogues use situations involving actual people to relate moral values and truth. The style Plato used in his Dialogues was one that followed Socrates’ idea that thought should not be frozen in writing. Rather, Socrates believed that questioning others about situations was the route to truth. Thus, in his Dialogues, Plato never mentions himself or his own ideas. This writing style is one reason that many philosophers believe Plato’s story of Atlantis was fictional. Other philosophers speculate wildly that Plato was so distraught over Socrates’ political death, that he concocted the Atlantis story fully 34 years later to show the Athenian powers their fate. But the Atlantis story contains only one primary moral—how greed and the quest for military domination violated the link between humanity and divinity—leading to the destruction of Atlantis. And the details of this aspect are the sketchiest in the entire story. In addition, Athens and Greece are the heroes of the story. In truth, the only compelling reason that the Atlantis story is considered to be fictional is that conclusive archaeological evidence for its existence hasn’t been found. But Plato himself related that the story was true and that he took great care to report the story exactly as it was told to him.
Plato. Source—Ridpath’s History of the World (1894).
Plato included the story of Atlantis in two of his later dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. Written not long before his death in 348 B.C., both books are considered to be unfinished works. Despite the fact that many philosophers argue the Atlantis narrative was a complete fiction, Plato’s account did involve actual historical figures and contained other accurate historical elements as well. Thus, the story cannot be a complete fiction. The main characters in Plato’s Atlantis story, all of which actually lived, were Socrates, Critias (Plato’s great grandfather), Hermocrates (a soldier/statesman of Syracuse), Dropides (Critias’ great grandfather), and another Critias (the son of Dropides—not Plato’s relative also named Critias). The key individual in the story of Atlantis was Solon, a well-known Athenian who traveled widely, wrote laws, and poetry. It is known that Solon actually visited Sais in Egypt, where Plato said the story was told to Solon. In addition, the names of historical Egyptian rulers and actual temples in Egypt were used.
Solon dictating laws. Source—Ridpath’s History of the World (1894).
Plato’s story of Atlantis comes from the tradition of orally handing down an important story from one generation to the next. Skeptics argue that since the story was told so many times, it could not have been recorded by Plato in its original form. But the details of his account are so precise and relate so many accurate facts that no one in Plato’s time supposedly knew, that the idea the story is completely fictional seems highly unlikely. Plato himself emphatically stated that the story was not only true, but he was giving a careful account of it exactly as it had been told to him.
In Timaeus, Plato related that the tale of Atlantis was told to him by Critias, his great grandfather. Critias, as recorded in Timaeus, was told the story of Atlantis by his elderly grandfather (also named Critias), who heard it from his father Dropides. Dropides heard the story from Solon, who, in turn, heard it from Egyptian priests at Sais. The verbal passing of the story from one person to the next is complicated, but given the oral traditions is certainly reasonable. In Timaeus, Plato introduced Atlantis by asserting that the known history of the world was far from complete and that periodic cataclysmic destructions had wiped the memory of countless events from human knowledge. In addition, he stated that these cataclysms were caused by the shifting of physical bodies that move through the heavens:
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There have been and there will be many and diverse destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means … but the truth of it lies in the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies of the heavens which move round the earth, and a destruction of the things of the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals.
(Timaeus 22 C-D)
Plato’s statement that “bodies of the heavens which move around the earth” can cause recurrent destructions on earth has long been considered ridiculous and is another reason “scholars” considered the tale to be fictional. Yet those words, written 2360 years ago, have proven to be frighteningly accurate. Until quite recently, scholars scoffed at the idea that cataclysmic events in ancient times could have destroyed entire civilizations. In fact, the idea that catastrophic events, such as earth strikes by comets or asteroids precipitating tsunamis, massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and shifts in the earth’s crust, have caused massive destruction in the distant past has only come to be accepted during the past 25 years. Prior to that time, geologists believed that changes to the earth were gradual, taking place over vast periods of time. With the recent verification of literally thousands of ancient craters marking the earth’s surface, it is known that sudden, violent events do occur with surprising regularity. And with the December 2004 tsunami that completely devastated many South Pacific coastal areas, it’s fully imprinted on our consciousness that maritime cultures can literally be wiped off the face of the earth in mere minutes—and completely without warning. In comparison to the devastation that Plato described as the end of Atlantis, the recent tsunami was very, very small. Precisely how Plato could have known that bodies in the heavens could cause catastrophic events—by both fire and water—is not mentioned by those who assert the story is fictional. It represents an important clue pointing to a level of sophisticated knowledge once existing in the ancient world that was somehow lost.
Regarding the physical existence of ancient Egyptian records documenting these events, Plato related what the Egyptian priests told Solon, “All such events are recorded from of old and preserved here in our temples …” (Timaeus 23 A) According to the Greek writer Plutarch (circa 50-120 A.D.), the Egyptian priest who related the tale to Solon was Senchis at the Temple of Minerva at Sais. The story of Atlantis was said to have been inscribed on pillars at the temple, but modern attempts to find the inscriptions at the ruins have failed to reveal them. However, the first commentator on Plato’s works, Crantor, visited Sais around 280 B.C. to validate Plato’s Atlantis story and related that the story was completely accurate. It has also been widely believed that the story of Atlantis was inscribed on scrolls kept at the Library of Alexandria, which was burned in 48 B.C. Half a million manuscripts are believed to have been destroyed in the library.
Depiction of a section of the Library at Alexandria. Source—Ridpath’s History of the World (1894).
