A tale of Atlantis, Plato

full thing here (beware, it is lengthy): https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

Here is an extract from plato’s book, ‘Timaeus’, translated by Benjamin Jowett in the 1870’s-1880’s.

It is a dialogue between three people: Socrates, Timaeus, Critias.

summary leading up to the Atlantis extract

This passage is a dialogue between Socrates, Timaeus, and Critias. Here’s a summary with relevant quotes:

This passage is a dialogue primarily between Socrates and Timaeus, with brief interjections from Critias. Here’s a summary without generalizing, using quotes where relevant:

  1. Socrates notes the absence of a fourth person who was supposed to join them, and Timaeus explains he’s ill.

  2. Socrates asks them to “recapitulate the whole” of their previous day’s discussion about the ideal State.

  3. They review key points of their discussion, including:

    • Separating “husbandmen and artisans from the class of defenders of the State”
    • The nature of the guardians, who should be “merciful in judging their subjects” but “fierce to their enemies”
    • The guardians’ education in “gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge”
    • The guardians should not have private property and should “live together in the continual practice of virtue”
    • Women’s roles and the idea that “their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with those of the men”
    • The communal raising of children, where “all wives and children were to be in common”
    • A system for “securing as far as we could the best breed” through controlled pairings
  4. Socrates expresses a desire to see this ideal State in action, saying he’d like to “hear some one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours”

  5. Critias offers to tell “a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon”

  6. Critias begins to recount a story about Solon’s visit to Egypt, where he learned about ancient Athens from Egyptian priests.

The passage ends with Critias about to share more details of this story about ancient Athens.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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 surrounding land 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, 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 danger, 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.

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