Hi Joe,
Cactusjumper wrote:
Two men who did not believe Plato's story was anything but fiction, were Aristotle and Plutarch. Plutarch labeled the story a "fable". You will have no trouble finding many others who believed it to be true
Aristotle and Plutarch? Are you quite sure of those two as men who were convinced Atlantis was fiction? I suggest you read Plutarch's "Life of Solon" - it is online at:
http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/solon.html
Plutarch's exact words are (translated into English) : "
Now Solon, having begun the great work in verse, the history or fable of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men in Sais, and thought convenient for the Athenians to know, abandoned it; not, as Plato says, by reason of want of time, but because of his age, and being discouraged at the greatness of the task; for that he had leisure enough, such verses testify, as- <snip>" - his use of the word "FABLE" does not have quite the meaning of classifying Atlantis as mythical, but rather as a history that has been dramatized. I underscored the mention of where Solon obtained the story of Atlantis, which would point to a non-Greek origin of the tale rather than an "invention" of Plato's for dramatic effect.
*Side note for our readers 'edification' but Aristotle was a "student" of Plato's, though he could not afford the tuition to attend Plato's classes directly he did sort of follow Plato and his class around as they walked. Plato taught his classes often while taking the students on a stroll. Plato jokingly referred to Aristotle as "the Colt" as a kind of ribbing, remembering that a colt will turn and kick his own mother after drinking his fill of milk from her.****
Cactusjumper also wrote:
The reason I asked you if you could pinpoint the time in history for the story of Atlantis, was not an idle question.
Athens, which plays a major part in Plato's story, could not have existed as Plato describes it in 9,500 B.C. (Approx. era)
That was around 3,000 years prior to man's emerging from living in caves and rock shelters.
I fear that you could be mistaken here amigo, firstly by referring to one of your own statements:
As you know....anything is possible......well, almost anything.
...secondly that your timeline of when Man emerged from living in caves and rock shelters is off quite a bit - Jericho in the Holy Land dates back more than 11,000 years; several Euhominid settlements in Russia date back 40,000 to 45,000 years ago. Doubtless there may well have been men still living in caves circa 6,500 BC and even up almost to modern times, but certainly other men were living in settlements well before this. For the benefit of our readers, here is what Plato had to say about Athens (and Greece) and why there was little trace of the former "proto-Greek" Athens in his own time:
The land was the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a vast army, raised from the surrounding people. Even the remnant of Attica which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the variety and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every sort of animal, which proves what I am saying; but in those days the country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I establish my words? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left. But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains. Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saying.
(From Critias by Plato)
Cactusjumper also wrote:
If you will address the problem with 9,500 B.C., we can proceed from that point with further discussion of the story of Atlantis. If you have not read Plato's "Republic", which preceeded "Timaeus", you will not have a clear picture of why Atlantis was created.
There is no problem with 9,500 BC, and I have read and re-read Plato's dialogues. (As well as most of the works of Aristotle, Plutarch, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Arrian, Appian, Caesar, Pliny the Elder, Aelian, Strabo, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Xenophon, Homer, Josephus, Hesiod, Thucidydes, Virgil and others; currently hunting up a copy of Attic Nights by Aulus Gellius - I LOVE the so-called "classics" and own a fair collection of them.) The history of Atlantis was included as a moral lesson, however Plato certainly did not create it. (It is mentioned over 100 years before Plato's time in Herodotus. It is what the Atlantic ocean is named for, after all.)
Oroblanco
) Ah well that would be cheating on my part, as I know how much time and effort it takes to find some of those ancient records, heck even trying to chase down a living relative of someone who was involved with a famous lost treasure can be quite an exercise. Something you are also only too well acquainted with.![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
