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The Story
The Story
The Legend of Atlantis is traced back to Plato's writings at around 350 BC. Plato mentions this mysterious island in the two dialogs of Timaeus and Critias.
Critias tells how Solon, the famous Athenian lawgiver, went to Saďs in Egypt about 590 BC, and heard the story of Atlantis from an Egyptian priest (Note: Egyptian Priest), Atlantis was already a great civilization when Athens had been founded about 9600 BC. It was then 'a mighty power that was aggressive wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which our city (Athens) put an end'. Atlantis, said the priest, was 'beyond the Pillars of Hercules' (the Straights of Gibraltar).
In the second dialogue, the Critias, Plato goes into far more about the history and geography of the lost continent. He tells how Poseidon (Neptune), the sea god, founded the Atlantian race by fathering ten children on a mortal maiden, Cleito, whom he kept on a hill surrounded by canals.
About the Atlantians
The Atlantians were great engineers and architects, building palaces, harbors, temples and docks; their capital city was built on the hill, which was surrounded by concentric bands of land and water, joined by immense tunnels, large enough for a ship to sail through. The city was about eleven miles in diameter. A huge canal, 300 feet wide and 100 feet deep, connected to the outermost of these rings of water to the sea. Behind the city there was a plain 230 by 340 miles, and on this farmers grew the city's food supply. Behind the plain there were mountains with many wealthy villages and with fertile meadows and all kinds of livestock.
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