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Gwen Parker
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Member # 2242
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 posted 09-24-2005 08:10 PM09-24-2005 08:10 PM 
Once again, the commonly accepted English version:
CRIT. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for
Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years
of age, and I was about ten. 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 sang the poems of Solon, which at
that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because
he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was
not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man,
as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing 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 his own country when he came home, to
attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as
Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. And what was the tale about, Critias? said
Amynander. About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and
which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time
and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us. Tell us,
said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this
veritable tradition. He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of
which 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 King Amasis came. The citizens have a
deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith,
and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene;
they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with
great honour; he 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, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell
about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus,
who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the
Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the
genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to
compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened.
Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon,
Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an
old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to
say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion
handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is
hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be
again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the
greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and
other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which
even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of
Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was
not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was
upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has
the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies
moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of
things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times
those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more
liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore.
And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour,
delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the
earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen
and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live
in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land,
neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above
on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which
reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer
does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in
lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours,
or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions
noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written
down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when
you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the
other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those
of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to
begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in
ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those
genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are
no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a
single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place,
you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and
noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city
are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And
this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of
that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time,
Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens
was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is
said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest
constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.
Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to
inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are
welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own
sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the
goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our
cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving
from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards
she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred
registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of
nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of
their most famous action; 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 ours 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 ply their several crafts by
themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds
and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too,
that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and
are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military
pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears,
a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as
in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe
how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of
things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of
these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and
adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to 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 valour.
For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an
expedition 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 are by you called the Pillars of Heracles;
the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way
to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the
opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is
within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow
entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be
most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of
Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the
whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and,
furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within
the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as
Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a
blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the
straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of
her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent 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
subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within
the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and
floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men
in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner
disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts
is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the
way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.
I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon
and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city
and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into
my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious
coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of
Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time had
elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all
run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I
readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such
cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and
that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided.
And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at
once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after
I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole
it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make wonderful
impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the
discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of
these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time
with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to
teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that
like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the
day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they,
as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make
an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you
not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me.
The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we
will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city
of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were
our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly
harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens
of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject
among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to
execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates,
if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for
some other instead.
Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this,
which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the
very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? How or where
shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot, and therefore you
must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and I in return for my
yesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener.
Crit. Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which we
have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is
the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the
universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the
generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, I am
to receive the men whom he has created of whom some will have profited by
the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in
accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with his law, we will bring
them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very
Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion,
and thenceforward we will speak of them as Athenians and fellow-citizens.
Soc. I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid feast
of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak next, after
duly calling upon the Gods.
http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/plato-timaeus/atlantis-athens.asp
continued on part 4
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