Beyond The Great
Island Of Atlantis, There Were Other Large Islands Not Far Distant From
The _Firm Land_, Beyond Which Again Was The _True Sea_.
The following are
the words which Plato attributes, in his Timaeus, to Socrates, as spoken
to the Athenians.
"It is held certain, that in ancient times your city
resisted an immense number of enemies from the Atlantic Ocean, who had
conquered almost all Europe and Asia. In those days the _Straits_ were
navigable, and immediately beyond them there was an island, commencing
almost at the _Pillars of Hercules_, which was said to be larger than Asia
and Africa united; from whence the passage was easy to other islands near
and opposite to the continent of the _True Sea_." A little after this
passage, it is added. "That nine thousand years before his days, a great
change took place, as the sea adjoining that island was so increased by
the accession of a prodigious quantity of water, that in the course of one
day it swallowed up the whole island; since when that sea has remained so
full of shallows and sand banks as to be no longer navigable, neither has
any one been able to reach the other islands and the _Firm Land_."
Some authors hare believed this recital to be merely allegorical, while
most of the commentators on Plato considered it as a real historical
narrative. The _nine thousand years_, mentioned by Plato, must not be
considered as an indication of this discourse being fabulous; since,
according to Eudoxus, we must understand them as lunar years or _moons_,
after the Egyptian mode of computation, _or nine thousand months_, which
are _seven hundred and fifty years_. All historians and cosmographers,
ancient as well as modern, have concurred to name the sea by which that
great island was swallowed up, the _Atlantic Ocean_, in which the name of
that ancient island is retained, giving a strong evidence of its former
existence.
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