Atlantis was a legendary ancient civilization in Greek mythology. It was described by the philosopher Plato as an advanced civilization that went too far in its hubris, provoking the wrath of the gods, who erased Atlantis from the face of the earth in one day and one night. The story of Atlantis was famous in the Greek world, and the lost civilization has fascinated over the centuries with the curious asking whether Atlantis existed, where it was, and how it was destroyed.
Atlantis in Greek Mythology
The story of Atlantis is one of an ancient Utopia. It was an enormous island, “larger than Libya and Asia combined.” It was populated by a race of demigods led by powerful kings who could trace their origins to none other than Poseidon, the mighty god of the seas and oceans. The Atlanteans made most of that connection, creating an advanced civilization and building enormous cities during a period when the rest of the world was still in the Neolithic. It helped that they lived in a veritable cornucopia, enjoying abundant resources, especially metals: silver, gold, and most importantly, orichalcum, the most precious gold-red metal.
As usually happens with those who have too much wealth and power, the Atlanteans wanted more. In their lust for power, this advanced civilization declared war on all the peoples of the Mediterranean Sea. Unsurprisingly, the Atlanteans’ mighty navy encountered little resistance and conquered and enslaved most of their technologically inferior neighbors. Yet, in their hubris, the Atlanteans underestimated one Greek city. The people of Athens not only resisted the invaders but managed to send their would-be conquerors back from whence they came. In the end, Atlanteans fell out of the gods’ favor. In a single day and night, Atlantis was destroyed by an earthquake and flood. Once a beacon of culture and civilization, the fabled island vanished under the waves, along with all its inhabitants.
Plato’s Atlantis: A Tale of Morality
Upon hearing the story of Atlantis, its hubris, and its doom, one could be forgiven for trying to place this island on a map. After all, we even have its approximate location, west of the Pillars of Hercules, or the Strait of Gibraltar, as we call it today. This sets the island in the Atlantic Ocean, or as the Greeks called it, “Atlantìs thálassa.” Yet, despite the attempts of generations of explorers and (pseudo) scientists to find this mythical place, Atlantis is, first and foremost, a myth. A morality tale invented by one of the brightest minds of ancient Greece, the Athenian philosopher Plato, who lived from the 420s to the 340s BCE.
Plato left us the only written account about Atlantis in two of his dialogues (written around 360 BCE), Timaeus and Critias. When reading the story in the broader context of Plato’s work and history, Atlantis becomes an elaborate allegory, clearly intended to praise Athenian democracy, but also serve as a warning. During Plato’s lifetime, Athens tried (and failed) to become an Empire, engaging in a bloody war with Sparta, known as the Peloponnesian War. Thus, the story of Atlantis was actually about Athens, a morality tale intended to educate young Athenians on the dangers of power and hubris. Just as the Atlanteans became greedy, petty, and morally bankrupt, Athens risked losing the tenets of its cherished democracy and turning into an authoritarian state. The tragic fate of Socrates, Plato’s mentor and colleague, put on trial and sentenced to death for “corrupting minds of young Athenians” was evidently still fresh in the philosopher’s mind.
The Search for Atlantis
Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, chiefly dismissed the Atlantis legend as pure fantasy. After all, the details contained in the two dialogues were too fanciful to be true. But the genie was out of the bottle, partly due to Plato’s writing style. To give his account of Atlantis credibility, Plato added another protagonist — Solon — one of the most renowned Athenian politicians and lawmakers. In the dialogues, Plato mentions that Solon heard the story of Atlantis from an old Egyptian priest in Sais. Let us not forget that Egypt held the title of the ancient world’s most advanced civilization, and its priests were admired as the keepers of this sacred knowledge.
The ploy obviously worked. In the 2nd century CE, the Roman historian Plutarch mentioned the story in his Life of Solon. A hundred years earlier, the geographer Strabo considered the possibility that the part of the story might be genuine and that a real natural disaster inspired the story of the downfall of Atlantis. Besides those few accounts, ancient sources rarely mentioned Atlantis. However, in the following centuries, the Atlantis myth sparked the imagination of many scholars and explorers.
The Age of Exploration during the 15th-17th centuries shifted focus onto the Americas, resulting in countless expeditions to find traces of a lost civilization among the Mayan, Aztec, or Incan cultures. Others searched for Atlanteans in the Middle East, Tibet, or even Antarctica. On the other hand, the foremost minds of the times, like Thomas More or Francis Bacon, reimagined Atlantean “utopias” in their iconic works.
Unfortunately, even pseudoscientists and occultists, including the infamous Heinrich Himmler, jumped on board, creating fanciful theories about the lost island and its demigod inhabitants. As a result, Atlantis, this mythical sunken island that played only a minor role in Plato’s work, has become a staple of our culture, featuring prominently in books, movies, shows, documentaries, and even video games. Perhaps the most iconic retelling of the ancient myth is the downfall of the island realm of Numenor in J.R.R Tolkien’s Silmarillion.
Yet, the story of the lost civilization does not end here in the realm of fiction.
More Than Just a Myth?
The Tale of Atlantis was, first and foremost, an allegory conceived by Plato to warn his contemporaries of the dangers to democracy. But, as is often the case with ancient myths, they are based on a sliver of truth: long-lost historical events immortalized as fanciful tales. The Bronze Age Collapse and the fall of the Mycenean civilization were reflected in stories about the Trojan War, told by Homer, while the once-mighty Minoan civilization was immortalized in the legend of King Minos, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur.
Incidentally, the Minoan civilization on Crete is one of the prime candidates for Atlantis. Like Plato’s mythical Atlanteans, the Minoans possessed a mighty navy, which, at its apex, projected its power all over parts of Greece, the Levant, and Egypt. Then, between 1611 and 1538 BCE, the volcanic island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) came back to life in a massive volcanic eruption, creating catastrophic tsunamis that hit Crete and destroyed the Minoan navy.
However, the similarities do not stop here. Minos, the legendary first king of Crete, was considered a son of Poseidon, just like the first king of Atlantis, Atlas. In addition, historical records from Egypt record the devastation that the volcano’s eruption brought to Egypt, giving some credence to the story of the Egyptian priest and Solon.
Plato’s Atlantis: The Tragedy of Helike
Yet, there is an even more likely candidate from ancient history, a tragic story that evokes the doom of Atlantis. To make matters more interesting, it happened during Plato’s lifetime. The city-state of Helike, located on the shores of northern Peloponnese, was a major regional naval power. Its sailors navigated the Mediterranean, establishing colonies in Asia Minor and Southern Italy. Unsurprisingly for a maritime power, the city’s main deity was none other than Poseidon, whose figure was carved on coins and whose temple was second only to the sanctuary at Delphi. The massive bronze statue of Poseidon was the pride of the citizens and a work of art. Unfortunately, it was also the “bringer of doom.” When the Ionians requested a copy of the famed statue, the Helikonians refused.
Then, on one winter night in 373 BCE, Helike met its doom, mirroring the tragic fate of its legendary counterpart. Without warning, a massive earthquake struck Helike, sending the entire city to the depths of the sea. In one single night, Helike, one of ancient Greece’s major powers, disappeared from the face of the earth, along with most of its inhabitants. A massive rescue mission consisting of over 2,000 men failed to retrieve the bodies of the dead or the town’s enormous wealth. Centuries after the catastrophe, the submerged ruins of Helike could still be seen. During the Roman Empire, tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the ruins of the submerged city. Gradually, the area silted over, and like mythical Atlantis, all traces of the town vanished. Only in the late 20th century was the city rediscovered, offering us an insight into what could have been Plato’s inspiration for the legendary story of Atlantis.
Is Atlantis Real?
So, is the story of the ancient Greeks real? Was the story in Plato’s writings inspired by a real place, used by Plato to deliver a warning to the people of Athens? While we might identify previously unknown ancient civilizations that were more technologically advanced than previously imagined and were destroyed by disaster, we may never be able to definitively identify one of them as Atlantis.
