Based On The Lost City Of Atlantis

3. Atlantis (in Greek, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's
dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis
was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many
parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or
approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank
into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by
older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and
Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in
the 6th century BC. In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history
of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into
Greek. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as
the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration
from contemporary events like the destruction of He like in 373 BC[1] or the
failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.

4. The possible existence of a genuine
Atlantis was discussed
throughout classical antiquity, but it
was usually rejected and occasionally
parodied by later authors. Alan
Cameron states: "It is only in modern
times that people have taken the
Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in
antiquity".[2] The Timaeus remained
known in a Latin rendition
by Calcidius through the Middle Ages,
and the allegorical aspect of Atlantis
was taken up
by Humanists in utopian works of
several Renaissance writers, such
as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis
and Thomas More's Utopia. Atlantis
inspires today's literature, from science
fiction to comic books to films. Its name
has become a byword for any and all
supposed advanced prehistoric lost
civilizations.

5. Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written in 360 BC, contain the earliest
references to Atlantis. For unknown reasons, Plato never completed Critias. Plato
introduced Atlantis in Timaeus:
For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the
course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic
ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to
boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth
which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island
which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the
travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to
the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that
veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we
speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real
ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and
truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a
confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over
all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent.[3]

6. The four persons appearing in those two dialogues are
the politicians Critias and Hermocrates as well as the
philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri, although
only Critias speaks of Atlantis. In his works Plato makes
extensive use of the Socratic dialoguesin order to
discuss contrary positions within the context of a
supposition.
The Timaeus begins with an introduction, followed by
an account of the creations and structure of the
universe and ancient civilizations. In the introduction,
Socrates muses about the perfect society, described
in Plato's Republic (c. 380 BC), and wonders if he and
his guests might recollect a story which exemplifies
such a society. Critias mentions an allegedly historical
tale that would make the perfect example, and
follows by describing Atlantis as is recorded in
the Critias. In his account, ancient Athens seems to
represent the "perfect society" and Atlantis its
opponent, representing the very antithesis of the
"perfect" traits described in the Republic.
A 15th-century Latin
translation of Plato's
Timaeus

7. Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fiction while others believed it was
real.[14] The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is often
cited as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His
work, a commentary on Plato's Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the
fifth century AD, reports on it.[15] The passage in question has been represented
in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor actually visited Egypt,
had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story or as
claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.16 Proclus wrote
As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned
history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that
Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of
his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics
seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians this story about the Athenians and
Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived
according to that system.

8. Other ancient historians and philosophers believing in the existence of Atlantis
were Strabo and Posidonius.[20]
Plato's account of Atlantis may have also
inspired parodic imitation: writing only a few
decades after the Timaeus and Critias, the
historian Theopompus of Chios wrote of a land
beyond the ocean known as Meropis. This
description was included in Book 8 of his
voluminous Philippica, which contains a dialogue
between King Midas and Silenus, a companion
of Dionysus. Silenus describes the Meropids, a race
of men who grow to twice normal size, and inhabit
two cities on the island of Meropis
(Cos?): Eusebes (Εὐσεβής, "Pious-town")
and Machimos (Μάχιμος, "Fighting-town"). He also
reports that an army of ten million soldiers crossed
the ocean to conquer Hyperborea, but abandoned
this proposal when they realized that the
Hyperboreans were the luckiest people on earth.
Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has argued that these and
other details of Silenus' story are meant as imitation
and exaggeration of the Atlantis story, for the
purpose of exposing Plato's ideas to ridicule.[21]
A bust of Posidonius.

9. Francis Bacon's 1627 essay The New
Atlantis describes a utopian society that he
called Bensalem, located off the western
coast of America. A character in the
narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is
similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in
America. It is not clear whether Bacon
means North or South America.
The Swedish scholar Olaus
Rudbeck published Atland in several
volumes, starting in 1679. This attempted to
prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of
civilization, and Swedish the original
language of Adam from
which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.[34]The
Latin parallel title is Atlantica and the subtitle
of both is Manheim, that is, home of mankind.
According to Rudbeck ,
Atland means fatherland, and it was the
original name of Atlantis.
A map showing the supposed
extent of the Atlantean
Empire. From Ignatius L.
Donnelly's Atlantis: the
Antediluvian World, 1882.[33]

10. During the late 19th century, ideas about the legendary nature of Atlantis were
combined with stories of other lost continents such as Mu and Lemuria. The
esoteric text Oera Linda, published in 1872, mentions it under the name Atland
(the name used by Olaus Rudbeck). The book claims that it was submerged in
2193 BC, the same year that 19th century almanacs, following traditional Biblical
chronology, gave for Noah's flood.[36]
Helena Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine (1888) that the Atlanteans were
cultural heroes (contrary to Plato, who describes them mainly as a military threat)
and are the fourth "Root Race", succeeded by the "Aryan race". Furthermore,
she expressed the belief that it was Homer before Plato who first wrote of
Atlantis.[37]
Theosophists believe the civilization of Atlantis reached its peak between
1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago but destroyed itself through internal warfare
brought about by the inhabitants' dangerous use of magical powers. William
Scott-Elliot in The Story of Atlantis(1896) elaborated on Blavatsky's account,
claiming that Atlantis eventually split into two linked islands, one called Daitya
and the other Ruta, and that the latter was later reduced to a final remnant
called Poseidonis.[38] Scott-Elliot's information came from the clairvoyant Charles
Webster Leadbeater.

11. Rudolf Steiner wrote of the cultural evolution of Atlantis[39] in much the same
vein.
Edgar Cayce first mentioned Atlantis in
1923[40] and later suggested that it was
originally a continent-sized region
extending from the Azores to
the Bahamas, holding an ancient,
highly evolved civilization which had
ships and aircraft powered by a
mysterious form of energy crystal. He
also predicted that parts of Atlantis
would rise in 1968 or 1969. The Bimini
Road, a submerged rock formation of
large rectangular stones just off North
Bimini Island in the Bahamas, was
claimed by Robert Ferro and Michael
Grumley[41] to be evidence of the lost
civilization. Edgar Cayce and others
have often described Atlantis using
techniques associated with Psychic
archaeology.
Ignatius L. Donnelly,
American congressman,
and writer on Atlantis.

12. The concept of Atlantis attracted Nazi theorists
(see Nazism and occultism). Reichsführer-
SSHeinrich Himmler organized a German
expedition to Tibet in 1939. It has been
suggested that this was to search for Aryan
Atlanteans,[42] although this suggestion has
been criticised as inaccurate,[43] it being
suggested that the expedition was more likely
looking for the origins of the "Europoid" race or
that it was a more general biological
expedition.[44]
According to Julius Evola, writing in 1934,[45] the
Atlanteans were Hyperboreans—Nordic
supermen who originated on the North
pole (see Thule). Similarly, Alfred
Rosenberg (The Myth of the Twentieth Century,
1930) spoke of a "Nordic-Atlantean" or "Aryan-
Nordic" master race.
American psychic Edgar
Cayce, 1910