Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World | Page 8

registers as
8000 years old. As touching the citizens of 9000 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
aggressing 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 islands 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. The 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.,
617, 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