PLATO'S ACCOUNT OF ATLANTIS
The following is a translation of Plato's record in full:
Critias. Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which
is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest
of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and great
friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself
says in several of his poems, and Dropidas told Critias, my
grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that there were
of old great and marvellous actions of the Athenians, which
have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction
of the human race--and one in particular, which was the
greatest of them all, the recital of which will be a
suitable testimony of our gratitude to you....
Socrates. Very good; and what is this ancient famous
action of which Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but
as a veritable action of the Athenian State, which Solon
recounted?
Critias. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from
an aged man; for Critias was, as he said, at that time
nearly ninety-years of age, and I was about ten years of
age. 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 sung the poems of Solon, which were new at the time.
One of our tribe, either because this was his real opinion,
or because he thought that he would please Critias, said
that, in his judgment, Solon was not only the wisest of men
but the noblest of poets. The old man, I well remember,
brightened up at 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 this 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 that poem about, Critias?" said the person
who addressed him.
"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did,
and which ought to have been most famous, but which,
through the lapse of time and the destruction of the
actors, 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: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where 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
Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a deity
who is their foundress: she is called in the Egyptian
tongue Neith, which is asserted by them to be the same
whom the Hellenes called Athene. Now, the citizens of
this city are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that
they are in some way related to them. Thither came Solon,
who was received by them with great honor; and 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, when he was drawing 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,' and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to
tell of the lives of Deucalian and Pyrrha; and he traced
the genealogy of their descendants, and attempted to
reckon how many years old were the events of which he was
speaking, and to give the dates. Thereupon, one of the
priests, who was of very great age, said: 'O Solon, Solon,
you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old
man who is an Hellene.' Solon, hearing this, said, 'What do
you mean?' 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you
are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among
you by ancient traditions, nor any science which is hoary
with age. And I will tell you the reason of this: there
have been, and there will be again, many destructions of
mankind arising out of many causes.
"'There is a story which even you have preserved, that
once upon a time Phaëthon, 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
thunder-bolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really
signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the
earth, and in the heavens, and a great conflagration of
things upon the earth recurring at long intervals of time:
when this happens, 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 the Nile, who is our never-failing savior,
saves and delivers us.
"'When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a
deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the
mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live
in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in
this country neither at that time nor at any other does
the water come up from below, for which reason the things
preserved here are said to be the oldest. The fact is,
that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer
sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing
at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers. And
whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in
any other regions of which we are informed--if any action
which is noble or great, or in any other way remarkable has
taken place, all that has been written down of old, and is
preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are
just being provided with letters and the other things which
States require; and then, at the usual period, the stream
from heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only
those of you who are destitute of letters and education;
and thus you have to begin all over again as children, and
know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either
among us or among yourselves.
"'As for those genealogies of yours which you have
recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales
of children; for, in the first place, you remember one
deluge only, whereas there were many of them, and, in the
next place, you do not know that there dwelt in your land
the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, of
whom you and your whole city are but a seed or remnant. And
this was unknown to you, because for many generations the
survivors of that destruction died and made no sign. For
there was a time, Solon, before that great deluge of all,
when the city which now is Athens, was first in war, and
was preëminent for the excellence of her laws, 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 this and earnestly requested the priest
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 the
city; and, above all, for the sake of the goddess who is
the common patron and protector and educator of both our
cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours,
receiving from the Earth and Hephæstus the seed of your
race, and then she founded ours, the constitution of which
is set down in our sacred registers as 8,000 years old. As
touching the citizens of 9,000 years ago, I will briefly
inform you of their laws and of the noblest of their
actions; and 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 your own,
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 the caste of priests,
which is separated from all the others; next there are
the artificers, who exercise their several crafts by
themselves, and without admixture of any other, and also
there is the class of shepherds and that of hunters, as
well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that
the warriors in Egypt are separated from all the other
classes, and are commanded by the law only to engage in
war. Moreover, the weapons with which they are equipped
are shields and spears, and this the goddess taught first
among you, and then in Asiatic countries, and we among the
Asiatics first adopted.
"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe, what care the law
took from the very first, searching out and comprehending
the whole order of things down to prophecy and medicine
(the latter with a view to health); and out of these divine
elements drawing what was needful for human life, and
adding every sort of knowledge which was connected with
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 likest 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 valor; for these histories tell of a mighty
power which was agressing wantonly 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 you call the
Columns of Heracles: the island was larger than Libya and
Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and
from the island you might pass through the whole of the
opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for
this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only
a harbor, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a
real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called
a continent. Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a
great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole
island and several others, as well as over parts of the
continent; and, besides these, they subjected the parts of
Libya within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and
of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
"'That vast power, thus gathered into one, endeavored to
subdue at one blow our country and yours, and the whole of
the land which was within the straits; and then, Solon,
your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue
and strength, among all mankind, for she was the first
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 danger, she defeated and triumphed over the
invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not
yet subjected, and freely liberated all the others who
dwelt within the limits of Heracles. But afterward there
occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single
day and night of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk
into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner
disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is
the reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and
impenetrable, because there is such a quantity of shallow
mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of
the island.' ('Plato's Dialogues,' ii, 517, Timæus.)...
"But in addition to the gods whom you have mentioned, I
would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important
part of what I have to tell is dependent on her favor, 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. To that
task, then, I will at once address myself.
"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 all those who dwelt
outside the Pillars of Heracles and those who dwelt within
them. This war I am now to describe. Of the combatants on
the one side the city of Athens was reported to have been
the ruler, and to have directed the contest; the combatants
on the other side were led by the kings of the islands
of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent
greater than that of Libya and Asia; and, when afterwards
sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud
to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean. The progress
of the history will unfold the various tribes of barbarians
and Hellenes which then existed, as they successively
appear on the scene; but I must begin by describing, first
of all, the Athenians as they were in that day, and their
enemies who fought with them; and I shall have to tell of
the power and form of government of both of them. Let us
give the precedence to Athens....
"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 in all
the ages and changes of things there has never been any
settlement of the earth flowing down from the mountains, as
in other places, which is worth speaking of; it has always
been carried round in a circle, and disappeared in the
depths below. The consequence is that, in comparison with
what then was, there are remaining in small islets only the
bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, all the
richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and
the mere skeleton of the country being left....
"And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when 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 further in the narrative, I ought to warn you
that you must not be surprised, if you should 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, made an investigation 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 retranslated
them, and copied them out again in our language. My
great-grandfather, Dropidas, 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 you the reason of them.
"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 themselves temples
and 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 proceed
to describe. On the side toward the sea, and in the centre
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, 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 named Cleito.
"The maiden was growing up to 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 lived all around, 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 out of the centre of the
island, equidistant every way, so that no man could get
to the island, for ships and voyagers were not yet heard
of. He himself, as he was a god, found no difficulty in
making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing
two streams of water under the earth, which he caused to
ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold,
and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly
in the earth. He also begat and brought up five pairs of
male children, 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.
"He named them all: the eldest, who was king, he named
Atlas, and from him the whole island and the ocean received
the name of Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born
after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the
island toward the Pillars of Heracles, as far as the
country which is still 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 Evæmon. To the third
pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus to the elder, 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 Diaprepes.
"All these and their descendants were the inhabitants
and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also,
as has been already said, they held sway in the other
direction over the country within the Pillars as far as
Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a numerous and honorable
family, and his eldest branch always retained the kingdom,
which the eldest son handed 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 could desire both in 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 much 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, mineral as well as metal, 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, and, with the exception of gold, was
esteemed the most precious of metals among the men of those
days. 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, and there was provision for animals of every kind,
both for those who live in lakes and marshes and rivers,
and also for those which live in mountains, and on plains,
and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most
voracious of them.
"Also whatever fragrant things there are in the earth,
whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or distilling drops
of flowers, or fruits, grew and thrived in that land; and
again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry
edible fruit and other species of food, which we call by
the general name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard
rind, affording drinks, and meats, and ointments, and good
store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to play
with, and are fruits which spoil with keeping--and the
pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after dinner,
when we are full and tired of eating--all these that
sacred island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and
wondrous in infinite abundance.
"All these things they received from the earth, and they
employed themselves in constructing their temples, and
palaces, and harbors 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, and made a passage into and out of the royal
palace; and then they began to build the palace in the
habitation of the god and of their ancestors. This they
continued to ornament in successive generations, every king
surpassing the one who came 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 dug a canal 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 harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient
to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover,
they divided the zones of land which parted the zones
of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would
leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one
into another, and roofed them over; and there was a way
underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones 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,
as well a zone of water as 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. This, and the zones and the
bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width,
they surrounded by a stone wall, on either 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 of
stone was white, another black, and a third red; as they
quarried, they at the same time hollowed out decks, double
within, having roofs formed out of the native rock.
"Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they
put together different stones, which they intermingled for
the sake of ornament, to be a natural source of delight.
The entire circuit of the wall which went around the
outermost one they covered with a coating of brass, and
the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the
third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red
light of orichalcum. The palace in the interior of the
citadel was constructed in 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 in which was originally begotten
the race of ten princes, and thither they annually brought
the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten
portions, and performed sacrifices to each of them.
"Here, too, was Poseidon's own temple, of a stadium in
length and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate
height, having a sort of barbaric splendor. 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, adorned
everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; all the
other parts of the walls and pillars and floor they lined
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 were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was
thought to be the number of them in that day.
"There were also in the interior of the temple other images
which had been dedicated by private individuals. And around
the temple, on the outside, were placed statues of gold
of all the ten kings and of their wives; and there were
many other great offerings, both of kings and of private
individuals, coming both from the city itself and the
foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an
altar, too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to
the rest of the work, and there were palaces in like manner
which answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the
glory of the temple.
"In the next place, they used fountains both of gold and
hot springs. These were very abundant, and both kinds
wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the sweetness and
excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings
about them, and planted suitable trees; also cisterns,
some open to the heaven, others which they roofed over,
to be used in winter as warm baths: there were the king's
baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept
apart; also separate baths for women, and others again for
horses and cattle, and to them they gave as much adornment
as was suitable for them. The water which ran off they
carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing
all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing
to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed
by aqueducts which passed over 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 some set apart for horses, in both of the
two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the
larger of the two, there was a racecourse 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
body-guard, the more trusted of whom had their duties
appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the
Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given
them within the citadel, and about 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. Crossing the outer harbors, which were
three in number, you would come to a wall which began at
the sea and went all round; this was everywhere distant
fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed
the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the
sea.
"The entire area was densely crowded with habitations;
and the canal and the largest of the harbors were full
of vessels, and merchants coming from all parts, who,
from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of
human voices and din of all sorts, night and day. I have
repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts about
the ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must
endeavor to describe the nature and arrangement of the
rest of the country. The whole country was described as
being 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 toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of
an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand
stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the
centre of the island two thousand stadia; the whole region
of the island lies toward the south, and is sheltered from
the north.
"The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number
and size and beauty, in which they exceeded all that are
now to be seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy
inhabited villages, and rivers and lakes, and meadows
supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and
wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated
during many ages by many generations of kings. It was
rectangular, and for the most part straight and oblong; and
what it wanted of the straight line followed the line of
the circular ditch. The depth and width and length of this
ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that such a
work, in addition to so many other works, could hardly have
been wrought by the hand of man. But I must say what I have
heard.
"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 the mountains,
and winding round the plain, and touching the city at
various points, was there let off into the sea. From above,
likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were
cut in the plain, and again let off into the ditch, toward
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, and in summer introducing the water of the
canals. As to the population, each of the lots in the plain
had an appointed chief of men who were fit for military
service, and the size of the lot was to be 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 having
leaders, to whom they were assigned according to their
dwellings and villages. The leader was required to furnish
for the wars the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as
to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two
horses and riders upon them, and a light chariot without
a seat, accompanied by a fighting man on foot carrying a
small shield, and having a charioteer mounted to guide the
horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed men,
two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters, and three
javelin men, who were skirmishers, and four sailors, to
make up a complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the
order of war in the royal city.
"That of the other nine governments was different in each
of them, and would be wearisome to narrate. As to offices
and honors the following was the arrangement from the
first: each of the ten kings, in his own division and in
his own city, had the absolute control of the citizens,
and in many cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying
whomsoever he would.
"Now the relations of their governments to one another
were regulated by the injunctions of Poseidon as the law
had handed them down. These were inscribed by the first
men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated in the
middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither
the people were gathered together every fifth and sixth
years alternately, thus giving equal honor to the odd and
to the even number. And when they were gathered together
they consulted about public affairs, and inquired if any
one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment on
him accordingly--and before they passed judgment they gave
their pledges to one another in this wise:
"There were bulls who had the range of the temple of
Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone in the temple,
after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might
take the sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted
the bulls without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and
the bull which they caught they led up to the column. The
victim was then struck on the head by them, and slain over
the sacred inscription. Now on the column, besides the law,
there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the
disobedient. When, therefore, after offering sacrifices
according to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of the
bull, they mingled a cup and cast in a clot of blood for
each of them. The rest of the victim they took to the fire,
after having made a purification of the column all round.
"They then drew from the cup in golden vessels, and,
pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would
judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish
any one who had previously transgressed, and that for the
future they would not, if they could help, transgress any
of the inscriptions, and would not command, or 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 family, at the same time drinking, and
dedicating the vessel in the temple of the god; and, after
spending some necessary time at supper, 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 near the embers of the sacrifices on which
they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fires about the
temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had
any accusation to bring against any one; and, when they had
given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences
on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials with
their robes.
"There were many special laws which the several kings had
inscribed about the temple, but the most important was the
following: that they were not to take up arms against one
another, and they were all to come to the rescue, if any
one in any city 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
family of Atlas; and the king was not to have the power of
life or death over any of his kinsmen, unless he had the
assent of the majority of the ten kings.
"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost
island of Atlantis; and this he afterward directed against
our land on the following pretext, as traditions tell. For
many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in
them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned
toward the gods, who were their kinsmen, for they possessed
true and in every way great spirits, practicing gentleness
and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their
intercourse with one another.
"They despised everything but virtue, not caring for
their present state of life, and thinking lightly on 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 virtuous friendship with one another, and that
by excessive zeal for them and honor of them, the good of
them is lost, and friendship perishes with them.
"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a
divine nature, all that which we have described waxed and
increased in them; but when this divine portion began to
fade away in them, and became diluted too often, and with
too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature
got the upper hand, then, they being unable to bear their
fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see,
they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of
their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see
the true happiness they still appeared glorious and blessed
at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous
avarice and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with
law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that
an honorable race was in a most wretched state, and wanting
to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened
and improved, collected all the gods into his most holy
habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world,
sees all things that partake of generations. And when he
had called them together, he spake as follows:"
The story abruptly ends here, for Plato left no further record.