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