Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World | Page 6

ten years, are fully explained by Plutarch. He dwelt, be tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There be conversed upon points of philosophy and history with the most learned of the
Egyptian priests. He was a man of extraordinary force and penetration of mind, as his
laws and his sayings, which have been preserved to us, testify. There is no improbability
in the statement that be commenced in verse a history and description of Atlantis, which
be left unfinished at his death; and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to
believe that this manuscript reached the bands of his successor and descendant, Plato; a
scholar, thinker, and historian like himself, and, like himself, one of the profoundest
minds of the ancient world. the Egyptian priest had said to Solon, "You have no antiquity
of history, and no history of antiquity;" and Solon doubtless realized fully the vast
importance of a record which carried human history back, not only thousands of years
before the era of Greek civilization, but many thousands of years before even the
establishment of the kingdom of Egypt; and be was anxious to preserve for his
half-civilized countrymen this inestimable record of the past.
We know of no better way to commence a book about Atlantis than by giving in full the
record preserved by Plato. It is as follows:
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 be 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
be 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 be 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 bow 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 be 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