Legendary Passages #0073 - The Gods of Atlantis -
Sky, Sun, & Moon, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History.
Last time we reviewed the history of Atlantis. This time we focus more on the ancient gods born there that inspired the Greek religion.
Their first King was a wise man named Uranus, who taught them laws, agriculture, astronomy, and the calendar. When he died, his people deified him as the universe made manifest.
Uranus had many wives, but his most productive was named Titaea, and her eighteen sons were called the titans. When she died, she too was made a goddess, renamed Gê.
Uranus' eldest child was a daughter named Basileia. She was kind and understanding, helping to raise all forty-four of her siblings, and became known as the Great Mother. After her father's death she was made Queen, and eventually married Hyperion.
They had two children, a son named Helius, and a daughter named Selene. The sons of Titaea, not wanting the sons of Hyperion to be made king over them, stabbed the boy Helius, and drowned him in the river. Distraught, his sister Selene jumped from the roof, killing herself.
While searching for her son's body, Basileia collapsed and had a vision of him. Helius told her not to mourn them, as men would come to call the sun 'Helius', and call the moon 'Selene'.
Basileia wondered the land making noise with her daughter's cymbals, until, one day, during a storm, she vanished from sight. Afterwards, the Atlantians called her the goddess Cybele.
Next time, we finish our history of Cybele & Atlantis.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/3D*.html
The Gods of Atlantis,
a Legendary Passage,
from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
translated by C. H. Oldfather.
[56] - [57]
But since we have made mention of the Atlantians, we believe that it will not be inappropriate in this place to recount what their myths relate about the genesis of the gods, in view of the fact that it does not differ greatly from the myths of the Greeks. Now the Atlantians, dwelling as they do in the regions on the edge of the ocean and inhabiting a fertile territory, are reputed far to excel their neighbours in reverence towards the gods and the humanity they showed in their dealings with strangers, and the gods, they say, were born among them. And their account, they maintain, is in agreement with that of the most renowned of the Greek poets when he represents Hera as saying:
For I go to see the ends of the bountiful earth,
Oceanus source of the gods and Tethys divine
Their mother.
This is the account given in their myth: Their first king was Uranus, and he gathered the human beings, who dwelt in scattered habitations, within the shelter of a walled city and caused his subjects to cease from their lawless ways and their bestial manner of living, discovering for them the uses of cultivated fruits, how to store them up, and not a few other things which are of benefit to man; and he also subdued the larger part of the inhabited earth, in particular the regions to the west and the north. And since he was a careful observer of the stars he foretold many things which would take place throughout the world; and for the common people he introduced the year on the basis of the movement of the sun and the months on that of the moon, and instructed them in the seasons which recur year after year.
Consequently the masses of the people, being ignorant of the eternal arrangement of the stars and marvelling at the events which were taking place as he had predicted, conceived that the man who taught such things partook of the nature of the gods, and after he had passed from among men they accorded him immortal honours, both because of his benefactions and because of his knowledge of the stars and then they transferred his name to the firmament of heaven, both because they thought that he had been so intimately acquainted with the risings and the settings of the stars and with whatever else took place in the firmament, and because they would surpass his benefactions by the magnitude of the honours which they would show him, in that for all subsequent time they proclaimed him to be the king of the universe.
To Uranus, the myth continues, were born forty-five sons from a number of wives, and, of these, eighteen, it is said, were by Titaea, each of them bearing a distinct name, but all of them as a group were called, after their mother, Titans. Titaea, because she was prudent and had brought about many good deeds for the peoples, was deified after her death by those whom she had helped and her name was changed to Gê.
To Uranus were also born daughters, the two eldest of whom were by far the most renowned above all the others and were called Basileia and Rhea, whom some also named Pandora. Of these daughters Basileia, who was the eldest and far excelled the others in both prudence and understanding, reared all her brothers, showing them collectively a mother's kindness; consequently she was given the appellation of "Great Mother"; and after her father had been translated from among men into the circle of the gods, with the approval of the masses and of her brothers she succeeded to the royal dignity, though she was still a maiden and because of her exceedingly great chastity had been unwilling to unite in marriage with any man.
But later, because of her desire to leave sons who should succeed to the throne, she united in marriage with Hyperion, one of her brothers, for whom she had the greatest affection. And when there were born to her two children, Helius and Selenê, who were greatly admired for both their beauty and their chastity, the brothers of Basileia, they say, being envious of her because of her happy issue of children and fearing that Hyperion would divert the royal power to himself, committed an utterly impious deed; for entering into a conspiracy among themselves they put Hyperion to the sword, and casting Helius, who was still in years a child, into the Eridanus river, drowned him. When this crime came to light, Selenê, who loved her brother very greatly, threw herself down from the roof, but as for his mother, while seeking his body along the river, her strength left her and falling into a swoon she beheld a vision in which she thought that Helius stood over her and urged her not to mourn the death of her children; for, he said, the Titans would meet the punishment which they deserve, while he and his sister would be transformed, by some divine providence, into immortal natures, since that which had formerly been called the "holy fire" in the heavens would be called by men Helius ("the sun") and that addressed as "menê" would be called Selenê ("the moon").
When she was aroused from the swoon she recounted to the common crowd both the dream and the misfortunes which had befallen her, asking that they render to the dead honours like those accorded to the gods and asserting that no man should thereafter touch her body. And after this she became frenzied, and seizing such of her daughter's playthings as could make a noise, she began to wander over the land, with her hair hanging free, inspired by the noise of the kettledrums and cymbals, so that those who saw her were struck with astonishment. And all men were filled with pity at her misfortune and some were clinging to her body, when there came a mighty storm and continuous crashes of thunder and lightning; and in the midst of this Basileia passed from sight, whereupon the crowds of people, amazed at this reversal of fortune, transferred the names and the honours of Helius and Selenê to the stars of the sky, and as for their mother, they considered her to be a goddess and erected altars to her, and imitating the incidents of her life by the pounding of the kettledrums and the clash of the cymbals they rendered unto her in this way sacrifices and all other honours.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/3D*.html
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Thursday, October 26, 2017
LP0072 - The Kings of Atlantis - Atlantean governance, from Plato's Critias
Legendary Passages #0072 - The Kings of Atlantis -
Atlantean governance, from Plato's Critias.
Last time we explored the capitol city of Atlantis. This time
we get a view of the whole of the island, and learn how they governed
themselves.
Firstly, remember that a hundred stadia in length is about 11.5
miles or about 18.5 kilometers.
Atlantis had a huge fertile plain sheltered by mountains, and
all the waters flowed into a massive circular ditch that connected to
the sea, which branched off into canals every hundred stadia, servicing
the land with irrigation and transportation. The land was dived into
lots, each of which had to provide troops and horses and equipment for
the military.
The land was ruled by ten kings, direct descendants of the ten
sons of Poseidon. The commands and laws of the god were inscribed on a
pillar of orichalcum in the temple on the central island, and every
five or six years the kings gathered together there. They sacrificed a
bull on the pillar itself, and swore to uphold the laws thereon and
punish those who broke them. The highest law was to maintain the rule
of the royal line of Atlas, and come to his defense.
For a long time, the Atlanteans cared little for gold and
property, instead valuing friendship and virtue. But as the divine
blood diluted with that of mortals, they grew greedy and corrupt. Zeus
sought to chastise them into improvement, and called all the gods
together. But what happened next is forgotten, and lost to history.
Next time, we discuss The Gods of Atlantis.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
The Kings of Atlantis,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plato's Critias,
trans. by Benjamin Jowett.
I have described the city and the environs of the ancient
palace nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to
represent the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole
country was said by him to be 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
towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape,
extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the
centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island
looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The
surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and
beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many
wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows
supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of
various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature
and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It
was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of
the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width,
and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that
a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have
been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. 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 from the mountains, and winding round the plain and
meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland,
likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from
it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to
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 of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by
introducing streams from the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find
a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size
of a lot was 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, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders
assigned to them according to their districts and villages. The leader
was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a
war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also
two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a
seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a
small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms
to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy armed
soldiers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men,
who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of
twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal
city- the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be
wearisome to recount their several differences.
As to offices and honours, 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 most cases,
of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the
order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were
regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down.
These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum,
which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of
Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and
every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd
and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they
consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had
transgressed in anything and passed judgment and before they passed
judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:- There
were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten
kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered
prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was
acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons but with staves
and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar
and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon
the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was
inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When
therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had
burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of
blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire,
after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the
bowl in golden cups and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore
that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would
punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that
for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against
the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor
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 descendants, at the same
time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the
temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their
needs, 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, over the embers of the sacrifices by which
they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple,
they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to
bring against any one; and when they given judgment, at daybreak
they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it
together with their robes to be a memorial.
There were many special laws affecting the several kings
inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following:
They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to
come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities 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
descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life
and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the
majority of the ten.
Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost
island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land
for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as
long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the
laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were;
for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting
gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their
intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue,
caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of
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 virtue and
friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect
for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such
reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the
qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but
when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too
often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got
the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved
unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for
they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who
had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and
blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and
unrighteous power.
Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able
to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a
woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they
might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most
holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds
all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as
follows-*
* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.
-THE END-
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
Atlantean governance, from Plato's Critias.
Last time we explored the capitol city of Atlantis. This time
we get a view of the whole of the island, and learn how they governed
themselves.
Firstly, remember that a hundred stadia in length is about 11.5
miles or about 18.5 kilometers.
Atlantis had a huge fertile plain sheltered by mountains, and
all the waters flowed into a massive circular ditch that connected to
the sea, which branched off into canals every hundred stadia, servicing
the land with irrigation and transportation. The land was dived into
lots, each of which had to provide troops and horses and equipment for
the military.
The land was ruled by ten kings, direct descendants of the ten
sons of Poseidon. The commands and laws of the god were inscribed on a
pillar of orichalcum in the temple on the central island, and every
five or six years the kings gathered together there. They sacrificed a
bull on the pillar itself, and swore to uphold the laws thereon and
punish those who broke them. The highest law was to maintain the rule
of the royal line of Atlas, and come to his defense.
For a long time, the Atlanteans cared little for gold and
property, instead valuing friendship and virtue. But as the divine
blood diluted with that of mortals, they grew greedy and corrupt. Zeus
sought to chastise them into improvement, and called all the gods
together. But what happened next is forgotten, and lost to history.
Next time, we discuss The Gods of Atlantis.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
The Kings of Atlantis,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plato's Critias,
trans. by Benjamin Jowett.
I have described the city and the environs of the ancient
palace nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to
represent the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole
country was said by him to be 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
towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape,
extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the
centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island
looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The
surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and
beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many
wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows
supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of
various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature
and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It
was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of
the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width,
and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that
a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have
been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. 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 from the mountains, and winding round the plain and
meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland,
likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from
it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to
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 of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by
introducing streams from the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find
a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size
of a lot was 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, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders
assigned to them according to their districts and villages. The leader
was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a
war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also
two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a
seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a
small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms
to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy armed
soldiers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men,
who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of
twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal
city- the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be
wearisome to recount their several differences.
As to offices and honours, 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 most cases,
of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the
order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were
regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down.
These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum,
which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of
Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and
every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd
and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they
consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had
transgressed in anything and passed judgment and before they passed
judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:- There
were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten
kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered
prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was
acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons but with staves
and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar
and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon
the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was
inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When
therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had
burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of
blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire,
after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the
bowl in golden cups and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore
that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would
punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that
for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against
the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor
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 descendants, at the same
time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the
temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their
needs, 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, over the embers of the sacrifices by which
they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple,
they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to
bring against any one; and when they given judgment, at daybreak
they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it
together with their robes to be a memorial.
There were many special laws affecting the several kings
inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following:
They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to
come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities 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
descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life
and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the
majority of the ten.
Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost
island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land
for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as
long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the
laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were;
for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting
gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their
intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue,
caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of
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 virtue and
friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect
for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such
reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the
qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but
when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too
often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got
the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved
unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for
they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who
had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and
blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and
unrighteous power.
Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able
to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a
woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they
might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most
holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds
all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as
follows-*
* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.
-THE END-
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
Friday, October 20, 2017
LP0071 - The Island of Atlantis - Atlantean architecture, from Plato's Critias
Legendary Passages #0071 - The Island of Atlantis -
Atlantean architecture, from Plato's Critias.
Last time we reviewed the ancient Athenians. This time we explore the island city of Atlantis itself.
Poseidon had five sets of twin sons with a mortal woman named Cleito, and their firstborn son was named Atlas, after whom Atlantis and The Atlantic Ocean was so named, and each successive firstborn son of line his became king.
The island was rich in resources, chiefly in orichalcum, a glowing red metal more precious than gold. The ground was fertile, providing many plants and animals, including elephants.
The city is measured in stadia, a unit of length about 185 meters, 607 feet, or just over two hundred yards. On the island there were three rings of water nested inside each other, probably successive volcanic rims. The order goes like this: The Atlantic Ocean, The Island of Atlantis, the outer lake, the outer ring, the middle channel, the inner ring, the innermost moat, and finally the central island.
Next time we review the history of The Kings of Atlantis.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
The Island of Atlantis,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plato's Critias,
trans. by Benjamin Jowett.
Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to
warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps 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,
enquired 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 when
copying them out again translated them into our language. My
great-grandfather, Dropides, 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 how they came to be
introduced.
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 for themselves temples and instituted 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 describe. Looking towards the sea, but 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 again, 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 called Cleito. The maiden had
already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon
fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the
ground, inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, 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, each having its circumference equidistant every way from
the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and
voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no
difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island,
bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm
water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to
spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up
five pairs of twin male children; and 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.
And he named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he
named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called
Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as
his lot the extremity of the island towards the Pillars of Heracles,
facing the country which is now 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 Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the
name Mneseus, 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 that of Diaprepes. All these and their
descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of
divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said,
they held sway in our direction over the country within the Pillars as
far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia.
Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained
the kingdom, the eldest son handing it 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 needed, both in the
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 most 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, solid as well as fusile, 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, being more precious in
those days than anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood
for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild
animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the
island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals,
both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also
for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for
the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also
whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or
herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower,
grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of
cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment
and any other which we use for food - we call them all by the common
name pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and
meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which
furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with
keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we console
ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating - all these that
sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth
fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the
earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their
temples and palaces and harbours 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, making a road to and from the royal palace. And
at the very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the
god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in
successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went
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 bored a canal of 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 harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest
vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges the
zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single
trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and they covered over
the channels so as to leave a way underneath for the ships; for the
banks 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 zones, the one of water, the other 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. All this including the zones and the
bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they
surrounded by a stone wall on every 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
was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried,
they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed
out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in
others they put together different stones, varying the colour to
please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire
circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, 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 palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on
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 where the family of the ten
princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought
the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions,
to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple
which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a
proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. 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, curiously wrought everywhere with
gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and
pillars and floor, they coated 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 there
were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to
be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the
interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by
private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed
statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their
wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of
private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign
cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in
size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and the
palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom
and the glory of the temple.
In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another
of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully
adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of
their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted
suitable trees, also they made cisterns, some open to the heavens,
others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the
kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart;
and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle,
and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of
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, while the remainder was
conveyed by aqueducts along 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 others for horses in both of
the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger
of the two there was set apart a race-course of a stadium in width,
and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to
race in. Also there were guardhouses at intervals for the guards,
the more trusted of whom were appointed - to keep watch in the lesser
zone, which was nearer the Acropolis while the most trusted of all had
houses given them within the citadel, near 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.
Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you came to
a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere
distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed
the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to
the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the
canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and
merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a
multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all
sorts night and day.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
Atlantean architecture, from Plato's Critias.
Last time we reviewed the ancient Athenians. This time we explore the island city of Atlantis itself.
Poseidon had five sets of twin sons with a mortal woman named Cleito, and their firstborn son was named Atlas, after whom Atlantis and The Atlantic Ocean was so named, and each successive firstborn son of line his became king.
The island was rich in resources, chiefly in orichalcum, a glowing red metal more precious than gold. The ground was fertile, providing many plants and animals, including elephants.
The city is measured in stadia, a unit of length about 185 meters, 607 feet, or just over two hundred yards. On the island there were three rings of water nested inside each other, probably successive volcanic rims. The order goes like this: The Atlantic Ocean, The Island of Atlantis, the outer lake, the outer ring, the middle channel, the inner ring, the innermost moat, and finally the central island.
Next time we review the history of The Kings of Atlantis.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
The Island of Atlantis,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plato's Critias,
trans. by Benjamin Jowett.
Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to
warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps 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,
enquired 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 when
copying them out again translated them into our language. My
great-grandfather, Dropides, 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 how they came to be
introduced.
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 for themselves temples and instituted 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 describe. Looking towards the sea, but 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 again, 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 called Cleito. The maiden had
already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon
fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the
ground, inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, 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, each having its circumference equidistant every way from
the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and
voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no
difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island,
bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm
water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to
spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up
five pairs of twin male children; and 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.
And he named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he
named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called
Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as
his lot the extremity of the island towards the Pillars of Heracles,
facing the country which is now 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 Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the
name Mneseus, 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 that of Diaprepes. All these and their
descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of
divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said,
they held sway in our direction over the country within the Pillars as
far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia.
Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained
the kingdom, the eldest son handing it 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 needed, both in the
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 most 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, solid as well as fusile, 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, being more precious in
those days than anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood
for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild
animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the
island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals,
both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also
for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for
the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also
whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or
herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower,
grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of
cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment
and any other which we use for food - we call them all by the common
name pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and
meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which
furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with
keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we console
ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating - all these that
sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth
fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the
earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their
temples and palaces and harbours 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, making a road to and from the royal palace. And
at the very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the
god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in
successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went
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 bored a canal of 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 harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest
vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges the
zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single
trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and they covered over
the channels so as to leave a way underneath for the ships; for the
banks 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 zones, the one of water, the other 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. All this including the zones and the
bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they
surrounded by a stone wall on every 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
was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried,
they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed
out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in
others they put together different stones, varying the colour to
please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire
circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, 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 palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on
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 where the family of the ten
princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought
the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions,
to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple
which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a
proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. 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, curiously wrought everywhere with
gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and
pillars and floor, they coated 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 there
were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to
be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the
interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by
private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed
statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their
wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of
private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign
cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in
size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and the
palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom
and the glory of the temple.
In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another
of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully
adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of
their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted
suitable trees, also they made cisterns, some open to the heavens,
others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the
kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart;
and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle,
and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of
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, while the remainder was
conveyed by aqueducts along 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 others for horses in both of
the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger
of the two there was set apart a race-course of a stadium in width,
and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to
race in. Also there were guardhouses at intervals for the guards,
the more trusted of whom were appointed - to keep watch in the lesser
zone, which was nearer the Acropolis while the most trusted of all had
houses given them within the citadel, near 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.
Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you came to
a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere
distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed
the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to
the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the
canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and
merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a
multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all
sorts night and day.
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm
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