Original expedition:
132-447: Poseidonis is the fictional last remnant of the lost continent of Atlantis , mentioned by Algernon Blackwood in his short story "Sand" (published in 1912) in his collection Four Weird Tales and also detailed in a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith . Smith based Poseidonis on Theosophical scriptures about Atlantis (such as Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky ), and his concept of "the last isle of foundering Atlantis"
264-742: A "Nordic-Atlantean" or "Aryan-Nordic" master race that spread from Atlantis over the Northern Hemisphere and beyond. The Hyperboreans were contrasted with the Jewish people. Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg (in The Myth of the Twentieth Century , 1930) and SS-leader Heinrich Himmler made it part of the official doctrine. The idea was followed up by the adherents of Esoteric Nazism such as Julius Evola (1934) and, more recently, Miguel Serrano (1978). The idea of Atlantis as
396-745: A death sentence in absentia , his guilt seemingly proven. In Sparta, Alcibiades gave the members of the Peloponnesian League critical information on the Athenian Empire. In Sicily, the fleet was redivided into two parts. The first contingent, commanded by Nicias, sailed to Segesta and forced the Segestans to pay the thirty talents they had promised the Athenians for their assistance against their rival Selinus . The second contingent, under Lamachus, sailed to and stormed Hyccara,
528-457: A disaster." After lengthy preparations, the fleet was ready to sail. The night before they were to leave, someone destroyed many of the hermai —the stone markers representing Hermes , placed around the city for good luck. This event was taken very seriously by the Athenian people as it was considered a bad omen for the expedition, as well as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow
660-419: A force to Sicily, and warned that they would be opening hostilities with enemies too difficult and numerous to conquer and rule. Nicias also attacked Alcibiades's credibility, claiming that he and his allies were inexperienced and self-aggrandizing young men eager to lead Athens into war for their own ends. In response, Alcibiades dismissed the attack on himself by pointing to the good he had done for Athens as
792-478: A great degree because of the person who first brought them news of it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons , and presently spread it about in
924-474: A lightweight force of twenty ships into a massive armada, and the expedition's primary proponent, Alcibiades , was recalled from command to stand trial before the fleet even reached Sicily. Still, the Athenians achieved early successes. Syracuse, the most powerful state in Sicily, responded exceptionally slowly to the Athenian threat and, as a result, was almost completely invested before the arrival of back-up in
1056-465: A motion allowing the generals to arrange for a force of over 100 ships and 5,000 hoplites. Nicias's ploy had failed badly. His misreading of the assembly had altered the strategic situation; whereas the loss of 60 ships would have been painful but bearable, the loss of the larger force would be catastrophic. "Without Nicias's intervention," wrote Donald Kagan , "there would have been an Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415, but there could not have been
1188-532: A number of parallels between the physical organisation and fortifications of Syracuse and Plato's description of Atlantis. Gunnar Rudberg was the first who elaborated upon the idea that Plato's attempt to realize his political ideas in the city of Syracuse could have heavily inspired the Atlantis account. Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical myth; others believed it to be real. Aristotle believed that Plato, his teacher, had invented
1320-642: A number of warriors, it provided crucial support to the Athenians. Athens and Syracuse also tried to gain assistance from the Greek cities in Italy. In Corinth, representatives from Syracuse met with Alcibiades, who was working with Sparta. Alcibiades informed Sparta that there would be an invasion of the Peloponnese if Sicily was conquered, and that they should send help to Syracuse and also fortify Decelea near Athens. The Athenians, he said, feared nothing more than
1452-585: A possible connection with Plato's island. John V. Luce notes that when Plato writes about the genealogy of Atlantis's kings, he writes in the same style as Hellanicus, suggesting a similarity between a fragment of Hellanicus's work and an account in the Critias . Rodney Castleden suggests that Plato may have borrowed his title from Hellanicus, who may have based his work on an earlier work about Atlantis. Castleden has pointed out that Plato wrote of Atlantis in 359 BC, when he returned to Athens from Sicily. He notes
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#17327877181151584-438: A private citizen and public leader. He rebutted Nicias's warnings about the plan for the expedition by reminding the Athenians of their obligation to their Sicilian allies, appealing to the enterprising spirit that had won Athens her empire, and pointing out that many states on Sicily would support Athens in her operations there. The assembly was clearly leaning towards Alcibiades's side, so Nicias, judging them unlikely to cancel
1716-404: A second assembly was held to arrange the logistics of the expedition. There, Nicias attempted to persuade the assembly to overturn its previous decision regarding whether to send an expedition at all. Over the course of several speeches, Nicias raised a series of different arguments against the expedition. He reminded the Athenians that they would be leaving powerful enemies behind them if they sent
1848-698: A small Syracusan force guarding the river Anapus , but other Syracusan cavalry and light troops continually harassed them. Near the Erineus river, Demosthenes and Nicias became separated, and Demosthenes was attacked by the Syracusans and forced to surrender his 6,000 troops. The rest of the Syracusans followed Nicias to the Assinarus river, where Nicias's troops became disorganized in the rush to find drinking water. Many Athenians were trampled to death and others were killed while fighting with fellow Athenians. On
1980-508: A small city allied to Selinus, and enslaved its populace. The Athenian army then marched through the Sicilian interior, to impress and negotiate with the Sicels , and returned to Catania. There they wintered and made preparations for their upcoming siege of Syracuse. When the campaigning season started, the Syracusans moved against the Athenians while they were still encamped at Catania. While
2112-474: A story which exemplifies such a society. Critias mentions a tale he considered to be historical, that would make the perfect example, and he then follows by describing Atlantis as is recorded in the Critias . In his account, ancient Athens seems to represent the "perfect society" and Atlantis its opponent, representing the very antithesis of the "perfect" traits described in the Republic . According to Critias,
2244-675: A sudden attack, he felt, would catch the Syracusans off guard and possibly induce their quick surrender. Eventually, however, Lamachus settled the three-way division of opinion by endorsing Alcibiades's plan. The Athenian fleet first sailed to Corcyra to meet up with their allies, and the ships were divided into three sections, one for each commander. Three of the ships were sent ahead to look for allies in Sicily. The fleet at this point consisted of 134 triremes (100 of which were from Athens), 5,100 hoplites (of which 2,200 were Athenians), 480 archers , 700 slingers , 120 other light troops, and 30 cavalry , as well as 130 other supply ships and all
2376-625: A technologically sophisticated, more advanced culture . Donnelly drew parallels between creation stories in the Old and New Worlds, attributing the connections to Atlantis, where he believed the Biblical Garden of Eden existed. As implied by the title of his book, he also believed that Atlantis was destroyed by the Great Flood mentioned in the Bible. Donnelly is credited as the "father of
2508-658: A theme that Bacon discussed in The New Atlantis ( c. 1623 ). A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in America. People had begun believing that the Mayan and Aztec ruins could possibly be the remnants of Atlantis. Much speculation began as to the origins of the Maya , which led to a variety of narratives and publications that tried to rationalize
2640-661: A word it is evident that all of them borrow from Moses, and publish his statements as their own. Aside from Plato's original account, modern interpretations regarding Atlantis are an amalgamation of diverse, speculative movements that began in the sixteenth century, when scholars began to identify Atlantis with the New World . Francisco Lopez de Gomara was the first to state that Plato was referring to America, as did Francis Bacon and Alexander von Humboldt ; Janus Joannes Bircherod said in 1663 orbe novo non-novo ("the New World
2772-602: Is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world , making it the literary counter-image of the Achaemenid Empire . After an ill-fated attempt to conquer "Ancient Athens," Atlantis falls out of favor with the deities and submerges into the Atlantic Ocean . Since Plato describes Athens as resembling his ideal state in the Republic , the Atlantis story is meant to bear witness to
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#17327877181152904-591: Is echoed by the isle of Númenor in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium . In the Pusadian series of short stories by L. Sprague de Camp , "Poseidonis" refers to the fictional lost island continent of Pusad, whose name was later corrupted to Poseidonis by the Greeks and whose fate was supposedly one basis for the Atlantis legend. The 1929 Malay-language novel Drama dari Krakatau , about the Krakatoa eruption, depicts
3036-415: Is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. The logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos wrote an earlier work entitled Atlantis , of which only a few fragments survive. Hellanicus' work appears to have been a genealogical one concerning the daughters of Atlas (Ἀτλαντὶς in Greek means "of Atlas"), but some authors have suggested
3168-859: Is not new"). Athanasius Kircher accepted Plato's account as literally true, describing Atlantis as a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean. Contemporary perceptions of Atlantis share roots with Mayanism , which can be traced to the beginning of the Modern Age , when European imaginations were fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. From this era sprang apocalyptic and utopian visions that would inspire many subsequent generations of theorists. Most of these interpretations are considered pseudohistory , pseudoscience , or pseudoarchaeology , as they have presented their works as academic or scientific , but lack
3300-495: Is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles ,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it
3432-631: The Congress of Gela , the Sicilian cities made peace on the basis of "Sicily for the Sicilians", and the Athenian fleet left for home. In 415, Athens and Sparta had been formally at peace since 421, when the Peace of Nicias had brought the Archidamian War to a close. The terms of that peace, however, had never been fulfilled; Sparta had never surrendered Amphipolis to Athens, as required by
3564-583: The Greek and Mayan languages , which produced a narrative of the destruction of Atlantis. The 1882 publication of Atlantis: the Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly stimulated much popular interest in Atlantis. He was greatly inspired by early works in Mayanism , and like them, attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from Atlantis, which he saw as
3696-578: The Hellenic deities of old divided the land so that each deity might have their own lot; Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking, bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, but it was later sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean. Plato asserted that the Egyptians described Atlantis as an island consisting mostly of mountains in
3828-578: The Maya peoples had descended from the Toltecs , people he believed were the surviving population of the racially superior civilization of Atlantis. His work combined with the skillful, romantic illustrations of Jean Frederic Waldeck , which visually alluded to Egypt and other aspects of the Old World , created an authoritative fantasy that excited much interest in the connections between worlds. Inspired by Brasseur de Bourbourg's diffusion theories,
3960-574: The Nazis with a mythological precedent and a pretext for their ideological platform and their subsequent genocide . However, Blavatsky's writings mention that the Atlantean were in fact olive-skinned peoples with Mongoloid traits who were the ancestors of modern Native Americans , Mongolians , and Malayans . The idea that the Atlanteans were Hyperborean , Nordic supermen who originated in
4092-591: The Peloponnesian League had it succeeded. Alcibiades rebounded politically from this defeat, and was elected as a general in the spring of 417. Control of Athens' foreign policy remained divided between a "peace party" (or pro-Spartan party) led by Nicias , and a "war party" led by Alcibiades. The peace established in Sicily at the Congress of Gela did not last long. Shortly after the Congress, Syracuse intervened in an episode of civil strife between
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4224-517: The Socratic method in order to discuss contrary positions within the context of a supposition. The Timaeus begins with an introduction, followed by an account of the creations and structure of the universe and ancient civilizations. In the introduction, Socrates muses about the perfect society, described in Plato's Republic ( c. 380 BC ), and wonders if he and his guests might recollect
4356-507: The Timaeus gives a description of the geography of Atlantis: That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone , and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Hades, another to Ammon , and another one between them to Poseidon,
4488-498: The " Akashic Records " (a term borrowed from Theosophy ), Cayce declared that he was able to give detailed descriptions of the lost continent. He also asserted that Atlantis would "rise" again in the 1960s (sparking much popularity of the myth in that decade) and that there is a " Hall of Records " beneath the Egyptian Sphinx which holds the historical texts of Atlantis. As continental drift became widely accepted during
4620-445: The 1960s, and the increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past, most "Lost Continent" theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity. Sicilian Expedition 414 BC reinforcements: 413 BC reinforcements: Initially: Gylippus's relief force: 413 BC relief force from Greece: 413 BC Sicilian relief force: The Sicilian Expedition
4752-426: The Athenian center under Menander eventually broke and was routed. Instead of pursuing their fleeing opponents, Pythen turned his Corinthian ships to attack the now-vulnerable Athenian right wing under Euthydemus. Beset from multiple sides, the right wing was defeated and largely destroyed; Euthydemus was killed as he tried to escape on the nearby shore. The destruction of Euthydemus' contingent shattered what remained of
4884-474: The Athenian fleet's order. The Athenian ships were subsequently pushed toward the coast; most Athenian crews abandoned their trapped vessels and fled to the camp behind their wall. Seeing the vulnerable Athenians running from their beached vessels, Gylippus ordered a furious but disorganized attack on land to catch his enemies before they could reach their base. However, the Spartan-led force was confronted by
5016-414: The Athenian ships (25 of which were triremes) in the harbour. Gylippus commanded a simultaneous attack on the Athenian land forces. In the harbour, the Athenians were successful, losing only three ships while the Syracusans lost eleven. However, Gylippus defeated the Athenians on land and captured two Athenian forts. Afterwards, Gylippus succeeded in convincing all the neutral cities on Sicily to join him, but
5148-421: The Athenian soldiers' ability to continue fighting and maintain morale. The Athenians attempted a last-ditch evacuation from Syracuse. The evacuation failed, and nearly the entire expedition was captured or was destroyed in Sicily. The effects of the defeat were immense. Two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers, an appreciable portion of Athens' total manpower, were lost in a single stroke. The city's enemies on
5280-420: The Athenian wall useless. The Corinthian fleet also arrived, under the command of Erasinides . Nicias, exhausted and suffering from illness, now believed it would be impossible to capture Syracuse. He wrote a letter to Athens, not trusting messengers to give an accurate report, and suggested that they either recall the expedition or send out massive reinforcements. He hoped they would choose to recall him, if not
5412-487: The Athenians inside. Outside Syracuse, the Athenians built a smaller walled enclosure for their sick and injured, and put everyone else (including many of the soldiers remaining on land) on their ships for one last battle, on September 9. The fleet was now commanded by Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus , while the Syracusan fleet was led by Sicanus and Agatharchus of Syracuse on the wings and Pythen from Corinth in
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5544-416: The Athenians were preparing to sail home, on August 28, there was a lunar eclipse , and Nicias, described by Thucydides as a particularly superstitious man, asked the priests what he should do. They suggested the Athenians wait for another 27 days, and Nicias agreed. The Athenians were now in a desperate situation. On September 3, the Syracusans began to completely blockade the entrance to the port, trapping
5676-528: The Athenians were proud of their role in the conflict. For instance, the Spurinna family of Tarquinia possibly continued to honor their involvement in the Sicilian Expedition for centuries. In Athens, the citizens did not, at first, believe the defeat. Plutarch, in his Life of Nicias , recounts how the news reached the city: It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in
5808-470: The Athenians' choice are not recorded, but the assembly may have been seeking to balance the aggressive young leader with a more conservative older figure, with Lamachus added for his military expertise. In practice, each of the three generals proposed a different strategy. Nicias proposed a narrowly circumscribed expedition; he felt that the fleet should sail to Selinus and force a settlement between Selinus and Segesta. After that, he proposed to briefly show
5940-472: The Athenians, that it is neither a mere myth nor unadorned history, although some take it as history and others as myth", he is treating "Crantor's view as mere personal opinion, nothing more; in fact he first quotes and then dismisses it as representing one of the two unacceptable extremes". Cameron also points out that whether he refers to Plato or to Crantor, the statement does not support conclusions such as Otto Muck's "Crantor came to Sais and saw there in
6072-458: The Athenians, while that island itself was submerged by God under the sea. Both Plato and Aristotle praise this philosopher, and Proclus has written a commentary on him. He himself expresses views similar to our own with some modifications, transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west. Moreover he mentions those ten generations as well as that earth which lies beyond the Ocean. And in
6204-403: The Atlantean empire, and as the alliance disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands. 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
6336-537: The Circle, which was defended by Nicias. After Nicias defeated the attack, the Athenians finally extended their wall to the sea, completely blockading Syracuse by land, and their fleet entered the harbour to blockade them from sea. The Syracusans responded by removing Hermocrates and Sicanus as generals and replacing them with Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias . Soon after this, the Spartan general Gylippus , responding to
6468-422: The Egyptians this story about the Athenians and Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system. The next sentence is often translated "Crantor adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved." But in the original, the sentence starts not with
6600-543: The Mediterranean, lending credence to many details in Plato's discussion. The fourth-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus , relying on a lost work by Timagenes , a historian writing in the first century BC, writes that the Druids of Gaul said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands. Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's sinking into
6732-657: The Northern Atlantic or even in the far North, was popular in the German ariosophic movement around 1900, propagated by Guido von List and others. It gave its name to the Thule Gesellschaft , an antisemite Münich lodge, which preceded the German Nazi Party (see Thule ). The scholars Karl Georg Zschaetzsch [ de ] (1920) and Herman Wirth (1928) were the first to speak of
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#17327877181156864-487: The Syracusan counter-wall on Epipolae in a risky night engagement (against the advice of Nicias). He succeeded in breaching the wall, routing or killing some of the first Syracusan defenders but was defeated by a force of Boeotians in the Spartan contingent. Many Athenians fell off the cliff to their deaths, and some of the rest were killed as they fled down the slope. Plutarch claims the casualties from this action numbered 2,000. Demosthenes' arrival provided little relief to
6996-457: The Syracusans and their allies, without achieving any dramatic successes. In 425, the Athenians planned to reinforce their contingent with an additional forty triremes, but that fleet never reached Sicily, as it became caught up in the pivotal Battle of Pylos on the way there. By the time that fleet reached Sicily in late summer, Athens's Sicilian allies had grown weary of stalemated warfare, and agreed to negotiate with Syracuse and its allies. At
7128-494: The Syracusans were marching to Catania, they learned the Athenians had boarded their ships and sailed into the Great Harbour at Syracuse. The Syracusans quickly hurried back and prepared for battle. The Athenian army landed to the south of Syracuse and fortified their position. When the Syracusan army finally arrived both sides waited for the other to make the first move. Eventually the Syracusans withdrew and made camp for
7260-603: The Syracusans, whose greater proximity and potential victory they feared more than that of the Athenians. Athens then sent for help from the Carthaginians and the Etruscans , as both were long-standing opponents of Syracuse. Carthage opted to stay out of the conflict, but several Etruscan cities banded together and organized a small force to aid Athens. Though the Etruscan force only included three large warships and
7392-555: The allies of Athens killed 800 Corinthians, including all but one of the Corinthian ambassadors. Demosthenes and Eurymedon then arrived with 73 ships and 5,000 hoplites. On their arrival, 80 Syracusan ships attacked 75 of the Athenian ships in their harbour. This battle went on for two days with no result, until the Syracusans pretended to back away and attacked the Athenians while they were eating. However, only seven Athenian ships were sunk. Demosthenes landed his forces and attacked
7524-580: The ancient culture of Atlantis. The book was published in 1940. Blavatsky was also inspired by the work of the 18th-century astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly , who had "Orientalized" the Atlantis myth in his mythical continent of Hyperborea , a reference to Greek myths featuring a Northern European region of the same name, home to a giant, godlike race. Dan Edelstein claims that her reshaping of this theory in The Secret Doctrine provided
7656-482: The call for help, landed at Himera . He marched towards Syracuse with 700 armed sailors, 1,000 hoplites from Himera and Selinus , 100+ cavalry, and 1,000 Sicels . They built another counter-wall on the Epipolae, but were driven back by the Athenians; in a second battle, however, Gylippus defeated the Athenians by making better use of his cavalry and javelin-throwers. The Syracusans completed their counter-wall, making
7788-408: The central island itself was five stades in diameter [about 0.92 km; 0.57 mi]. In Plato's metaphorical tale, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of these, Atlas , was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and
7920-515: The centre. Each side had about 100 ships participating. The Athenian ships were extremely cramped and had no room to manoeuvre. Collisions were frequent, and the Syracusans could easily ram the Athenian ships head-on, without the Athenians being able to move to ram them broadside, as they preferred. Javelin throwers and archers shot from each ship, but the Syracusans deflected Athenian grappling hooks by covering their decks with animal hides. The battle went on for some time with no clear victor, but
8052-746: The city was more prosperous than it actually was, by making sure that the ambassadors saw all their golden and other valuable objects in a way as if these were just part of what they had. At Athens, the Segestan ambassadors presented their case for intervention to the assembly , where debate over the proposal quickly divided along traditional factional lines. The assembly eventually approved an expedition composed of sixty triremes , without hoplite accompaniment, commanded by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus . Thucydides reports that Nicias had been appointed against his preference, but offers no further detail regarding that debate. Five days after that first debate,
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#17327877181158184-447: The city. Meanwhile, diplomats from both camps went to Camarina in an attempt to form an alliance with that city. Hermocrates wanted Camarina and the other cities to unite with Syracuse against Athens, but Euphemus, the representative for the Athenians, said Syracuse only wanted to rule Camarina, and they should join with Athens if they wanted to remain free. The Camarinans decided not to join either side, although they quietly sent aid to
8316-409: The civilization of Atlantis reached its peak between 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago, but destroyed itself through internal warfare brought about by the dangerous use of psychic and supernatural powers of the inhabitants. Rudolf Steiner , the founder of anthroposophy and Waldorf Schools , along with other well known Theosophists, such as Annie Besant , also wrote of cultural evolution in much
8448-531: The crews of the triremes and other non-combatants. They had little luck finding allies along the coast of southern Italy and, when the three other ships returned, they learned that Segesta did not have the money they promised. Nicias had expected this, but the other commanders were dismayed. Nicias suggested they make a show of force and then return home, while Alcibiades said they should encourage revolts against Syracuse, and then attack Syracuse and Selinus. Lamachus said they should attack Syracuse right away, as it
8580-514: The democratic and oligarchic parties in Leontini , supporting the oligarchs. Before too long, the prospect of foreign domination had united the Leontinians, and the two parties united in war against Syracuse. Athens had sent an emissary to Sicily in 422 to sound out the possibility of renewing the war against Syracuse, but achieved nothing. In 416, however, a second Sicilian conflict provided
8712-406: The disaster. The specific fate of Nicias and Demosthenes is not clearly recorded, but according to Thucydides' account, both were executed after their surrender, Demosthenes due to his earlier role in the war at Pylos, Nicias due to worries of a possibility of escape through bribery and possibility of causing later harm. Some historians have said that the Sicilian expedition was fatally flawed from
8844-643: The discoveries within the context of the Bible and that had undertones of racism in their connections between the Old and New World. The Europeans believed the indigenous people to be inferior and incapable of building that which was now in ruins and by sharing a common history, they insinuated that another race must have been responsible. In the middle and late nineteenth century, several renowned Mesoamerican scholars, starting with Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg , and including Edward Herbert Thompson and Augustus Le Plongeon , formally proposed that Atlantis
8976-677: The existence of Atlantis were Strabo and Posidonius . Some have theorized that, before the sixth century BC, the "Pillars of Hercules" may have applied to mountains on either side of the Gulf of Laconia , and also may have been part of the pillar cult of the Aegean. The mountains stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and it opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. This would have placed Atlantis in
9108-442: The expedition if he argued against it directly, chose a different tactic. He described the wealth and power of the Sicilian cities Athens would be challenging, and stated that a larger expedition than previously approved would be required, expecting that the prospect of approving such a massive expenditure would prove unappealing to the citizenry. Contrary to Nicias's plan, the assembly enthusiastically embraced his proposal, and passed
9240-505: The extent of which was a thousand stadia [200 km; 124 mi]; and the inhabitants of it—they add—preserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to Poseidon. Now these things Marcellus has written in his Aethiopica . Marcellus remains unidentified. Other ancient historians and philosophers who believed in
9372-445: The failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC. The only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias ; all other mentions of the island are based on them. The dialogues claim to quote Solon , who visited Egypt between 590 and 580 BC; they state that he translated Egyptian records of Atlantis. Plato introduced Atlantis in Timaeus , written in 360 BC: For it
9504-437: The first counter-wall, but the Syracusans began to build another one, this time with a ditch, blocking the Athenians from extending their wall to the sea. Another 300 Athenians attacked this wall and captured it, but were driven off by a Syracusan counter-attack in which Lamachus was killed, leaving only Nicias from the three original commanders. The Syracusans destroyed 300 m (1,000 feet) of the Athenian wall, but could not destroy
9636-408: The flag around Sicily and then return home, unless the Segestans were willing to pay for the full cost of the expanded expedition. Alcibiades proposed to first attempt to win over allies on the island through diplomacy, and then attack Selinus and Syracuse. Lamachus, meanwhile, proposed taking advantage of the element of surprise by sailing directly to Syracuse and giving battle outside the city. Such
9768-421: The form of Spartan general Gylippus , who galvanized its inhabitants into action. From that point forward, however, as the Athenians ceded the initiative to their newly energized opponents, the tide of the conflict shifted. A massive reinforcing armada from Athens briefly gave the Athenians the upper hand once more, but a disastrous failed assault on a strategic high point and several crippling naval defeats damaged
9900-487: The fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent. The four people appearing in those two dialogues are the politicians Critias and Hermocrates as well as the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri , although only Critias speaks of Atlantis. In his works Plato makes extensive use of
10032-422: The government. According to Plutarch, Androcles, a political enemy of Alcibiades, used false witness to claim that Alcibiades and his friends were responsible. Alcibiades volunteered to be put on trial under penalty of death in order to prove his innocence (wanting to avoid his enemies charging him, in his absence, with more false information), but this request was denied. He was otherwise extremely popular and had
10164-464: The hands of the enemy than by those of his countrymen. He hoped the Syracusans would soon run out of money, and he had also been informed that there were pro-Athenian factions in Syracuse who were ready to turn the city over to him. Demosthenes and Eurymedon reluctantly agreed that Nicias might be right, but when reinforcements from the Peloponnese arrived, Nicias agreed that they should leave. Just as
10296-713: The homeland of the Caucasian race would contradict the beliefs of older Esoteric and Theosophic groups, which taught that the Atlanteans were non-Caucasian brown-skinned peoples. Modern Esoteric groups, including the Theosophic Society, do not consider Atlantean society to have been superior or Utopian—they rather consider it a lower stage of evolution. The clairvoyant Edgar Cayce spoke frequently of Atlantis. During his "life readings", he claimed that many of his subjects were reincarnations of people who had lived there. By tapping into their collective consciousness ,
10428-484: The invitation Athens had sought in 422. The city of Segesta —an Athenian ally in the 420s—went to war against Selinus and, after losing an initial battle, sent to Athens for help. In order to win the Athenians' support, the Segestaeans claimed that they were capable of funding much of the cost of sending a fleet, offering 60 talents of uncoined silver up front, and tricking Athenian ambassadors into believing that
10560-605: The island of Atalantes [translator's spelling; original: " Ἀτλαντίς "] which was greater than Africa and Asia, as Plato says in the Timaeus, in one day and night was overwhelmed beneath the sea in consequence of an extraordinary earthquake and inundation and suddenly disappeared, becoming sea, not indeed navigable, but full of gulfs and eddies. The theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot ( Apostolic Fathers , 1885, II, p. 84) noted on this passage: "Clement may possibly be referring to some known, but hardly accessible land, lying without
10692-474: The island of Atlantis on the authority of Solon is not a figment." The term " utopia " (from "no place") was coined by Sir Thomas More in his sixteenth-century work of fiction Utopia . Inspired by Plato 's Atlantis and travelers' accounts of the Americas , More described an imaginary land set in the New World . His idealistic vision established a connection between the Americas and utopian societies,
10824-487: The island to teach philosophy. The philosopher Crantor , a student of Plato's student Xenocrates , is cited often as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on Timaeus , is lost, but Proclus , a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it. The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming
10956-482: The losses suffered. Athens managed to recover remarkably well from the expedition materially, the principal issue being the loss of manpower rather than the loss of ships. Although Athens had never involved itself deeply in Sicilian affairs, it had ties there before the onset of the Peloponnesian War, dating back to at least the mid-5th century BC. To small Sicilian cities, Athens was a potential counter to
11088-465: The mainland and in Persia were encouraged to take action, and rebellions broke out in the Aegean. Some historians consider the defeat to have been the turning point in the war, though Athens continued to fight for another decade. Thucydides observed that contemporary Greeks were shocked not that Athens eventually fell after the defeat, but rather that it fought on for as long as it did, so devastating were
11220-486: The marketplace. On which, there being everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore, fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers arrived that related
11352-682: The moats, and were covered with brass , tin , and the precious metal orichalcum , respectively. According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime a war took place between those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar and those who dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt, and the European continent as far as Tyrrhenia , and had subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against
11484-442: The mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each ring of the city. The walls were constructed of red, white, and black rock, quarried from
11616-424: The name Crantor but with the ambiguous He ; whether this referred to Crantor or to Plato is the subject of considerable debate. Proponents of both Atlantis as a metaphorical myth and Atlantis as history have argued that the pronoun refers to Crantor. Alan Cameron argues that the pronoun should be interpreted as referring to Plato, and that, when Proclus writes that "we must bear in mind concerning this whole feat of
11748-475: The night. The next morning the Athenians lined up eight men deep, with the Argives and Mantineans on the right, the rest of the allies on the left, and the Athenians themselves in the centre. The Syracusans were deployed sixteen men deep, in order to offset the advantage of the Athenians in experience. They also had 1,200 cavalry, vastly outnumbering the Athenian cavalry, although the total numbers of men were about
11880-552: The nineteenth century Atlantis revival" and is the reason the myth endures today. He unintentionally promoted an alternative method of inquiry to history and science, and the idea that myths contain hidden information that opens them to "ingenious" interpretation by people who believe they have new or special insight. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky , the founder of the Theosophists , took up Donnelly 's interpretations when she wrote The Secret Doctrine (1888), which she claimed
12012-422: The northern portions and along the shore and encompassing a great plain in an oblong shape in the south "extending in one direction three thousand stadia [about 555 km; 345 mi], but across the center inland it was two thousand stadia [about 370 km; 230 mi]." Fifty stadia [9 km; 6 mi] from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides ... broke it off all round about ...
12144-468: The occupation of Decelea. The Spartans took this advice into consideration, and appointed Gylippus to command their fleet. In the spring of 414 BC, reinforcements arrived from Athens, consisting of 250 cavalry, 30 mounted archers, and 300 talents of silver, which was used to pay for 400 more cavalry from their Sicilian allies. In the summer, they landed on the Epipolae , the cliff above Syracuse, which
12276-535: The origins of the Malay Archipelago from rising sea levels caused by the sinking of Poseidonis. Atlantis Atlantis ( Ancient Greek : Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος , romanized : Atlantìs nêsos , lit. 'island of Atlas ') is a fictional island mentioned in Plato 's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis
12408-470: The other Athenians. Their camp was located near a marsh and many of them had fallen ill, including Nicias. Seeing this, Demosthenes thought they should all return to Athens to defend Attica against the Spartan invasion that had taken Decelea. Nicias, who had opposed the expedition at first, now did not want to show any weakness either to the Syracusans and Spartans, or to the Athenians at home who he thought would have him executed, stating he would rather die by
12540-505: The other side of the river a Syracusan force was waiting, and the Athenians were almost completely massacred, by far the worst defeat of the entire expedition in terms of lives lost. Nicias personally surrendered to Gylippus, hoping the Spartan would remember his role in the peace treaty of 421. The few who escaped found refuge in Catana. The prisoners, now numbering only 7,000, were held in the stone quarries near Syracuse which were considered
12672-438: The outset, that the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily was an example of mad arrogance. Others however argue that there was nothing inherently wrong with the plan strategically, and that it would have succeeded if the Athenian leadership had not made a succession of bad tactical decisions. J. B. Bury judged that by far the biggest single reason for the expedition's catastrophic failure was the incompetence of Nicias, aggravated by
12804-466: The philosopher Timaeus also describes this Earth as surrounded by the Ocean, and the Ocean as surrounded by the more remote earth. For he supposes that there is to westward an island, Atlantis, lying out in the Ocean, in the direction of Gadeira (Cadiz), of an enormous magnitude, and relates that the ten kings having procured mercenaries from the nations in this island came from the earth far away, and conquered Europe and Asia, but were afterwards conquered by
12936-425: The pillars of Hercules. But more probably he contemplated some unknown land in the far west beyond the ocean, like the fabled Atlantis of Plato ..." Other early Christian writers wrote about Atlantis, although they had mixed views on whether it once existed or was an untrustworthy myth of pagan origin. Tertullian believed Atlantis was once real and wrote that in the Atlantic Ocean once existed "[the isle] that
13068-399: The powerful city of Syracuse, which was strong enough to potentially dominate the island. Syracuse, like Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, was a Dorian city, while most of Athens's allies on the island were Ionian . Another source of conflict was the close relationship of Syracuse and other Dorian cities of the west to Athens's great commercial rival, Corinth. To the Athenians, Sicily
13200-533: The pseudoarchaeologist Augustus Le Plongeon traveled to Mesoamerica and performed some of the first excavations of many famous Mayan ruins. Le Plongeon invented narratives, such as the kingdom of Mu saga, which romantically drew connections to him, his wife Alice, and Egyptian deities Osiris and Isis , as well as to Heinrich Schliemann , who had just discovered the ancient city of Troy from Homer 's epic poetry (that had been described as merely mythical). He also believed that he had found connections between
13332-475: The recall of Alcibiades. For Athens, the expedition was a "human disaster as painful as the plague [as well as a] political disaster" which severely harmed the city's war efforts and hegemony over its allies. Sparta exploited this weakness to greatly increase the pressure on its rival over the next years, though it could not achieve a strategic breakthrough. In contrast, the Etruscans who had fought alongside
13464-507: The richest and most powerful city of Sicily, felt that the Athenians were in fact coming to attack them under the pretense of aiding Segesta in a minor war. The Syracusan general Hermocrates suggested that they ask for help from other Sicilian cities, and from Carthage . He also wanted to meet the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea before they arrived. Others argued that Athens was no threat to Syracuse, and some people did not believe there
13596-412: The roadblocks that did not yet exist, and the Syracusans burned or towed away the Athenian ships on the beach, so that they had no way off the island. On September 13, the Athenians left camp leaving their wounded behind and their dead unburied. The survivors, including all the non-combatants, numbered 40,000, and some of the wounded crawled after them as far as they could go. As they marched they defeated
13728-477: The safest prison for such a number of men. Demosthenes and Nicias were executed, against the orders of Gylippus. The rest spent ten weeks in horrible conditions in their makeshift prison, until all but the Athenians, Italians, and Sicilians were sold as slaves . The remaining Athenians were left to die slowly of disease and starvation in the quarry. In the end some of the very last survivors managed to escape and eventually trickled to Athens, bringing first-hand news of
13860-426: The same vein. Other occultists followed the same lead, at least to the point of tracing the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis. Among the most famous is Dion Fortune in her Esoteric Orders and Their Work . Drawing on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and Hanns Hörbiger , Egon Friedell started his book Kulturgeschichte des Altertums [ de ] , and thus his historical analysis of antiquity, with
13992-442: The same. The Athenians attacked first, believing themselves to be the stronger and more experienced army, and after some unexpectedly strong resistance, the Argives pushed back the Syracusan left wing, causing the rest to flee. The Syracusan cavalry prevented the Athenians from chasing them, thereby averting a catastrophe for the Syracusans, who lost about 260 men, and the Athenians about 50. The Athenians then sailed back to Catania for
14124-571: The sea, its inhabitants fled to western Europe; but Ammianus, in fact, says that "the Drasidae (Druids) recall that a part of the population is indigenous but others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the Rhine " ( Res Gestae 15.9), an indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north (Britain, the Netherlands, or Germany), not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to
14256-469: The second assembly. Alcibiades was the expedition's leading proponent, and the leader of the war party, Nicias its leading critic and the leader of the peace party. Lamachus, meanwhile, was a fifty-year-old career soldier, of whom the longest extant portrayal is a series of scenes in Aristophanes ' The Acharnians that satirize him as a braggadocious, perpetually impoverished warrior. The reasons for
14388-458: The ships again and attempt to force their way out, as now both fleets had lost about half their ships and Nicias agreed. The men themselves did not want to board the ship because they were afraid. They then decided to retreat by land. Hermocrates sent some supposed informers to the Athenians to falsely report that there were spies and roadblocks further inland, so the Athenians would be safer if they did not march away. Gylippus used this delay to build
14520-419: The small unit of Etruscans who had been sent to aid Athens; these warriors managed to stop Gylippus's assault. Using this respite, the Athenians rallied and returned to fight alongside the Etruscans, securing several of their ships on the beach and preventing a complete catastrophe. Historian David Abulafia concluded that the Etruscans had "saved the day" for the Athenians. Demosthenes suggested that they man
14652-648: The south-west. Instead, the Celts who dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods, ( Dioscori ), who appeared to them coming from that ocean. During the early first century, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo wrote about the destruction of Atlantis in his On the Eternity of the World , xxvi. 141, in a longer passage allegedly citing Aristotle's successor Theophrastus : ... And
14784-421: The standards or criteria. The Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius is believed to have been the first person to imagine that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions. In the 1596 edition of his Thesaurus Geographicus he wrote: "Unless it be a fable, the island of Gadir or Gades [ Cadiz ] will be the remaining part of the island of Atlantis or America, which
14916-752: The story's fictional nature, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions, as he did with the story of Gyges . This led a number of scholars to suggest possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of the Thera eruption , the Sea Peoples invasion, or the Trojan War . Others have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible and insist that Plato created an entirely fictional account, drawing loose inspiration from contemporary events such as
15048-463: The story, or, as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt. Proclus wrote: As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to
15180-558: The superiority of his concept of a state. Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon 's New Atlantis and Thomas More 's Utopia . On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition, most famously Ignatius L. Donnelly in his Atlantis: The Antediluvian World . Plato's vague indications of
15312-493: The support of the entire army; he had also gained the support of Argos and Mantinea during the preparations. He was not charged, and the fleet sailed the next day. His opponents, however, waited for Alcibiades to set sail before they leveled the charges against him. This was because the army, his main source of support, would be absent, and his supporters would be outnumbered when the votes were cast. Many people in Syracuse ,
15444-660: The surrounding area as his fiefdom . Atlas's twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in Greek, was given the extremity of the island toward the pillars of Hercules. The other four pairs of twins—Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes—were also given "rule over many men, and a large territory." Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from
15576-420: The temple of Neith the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis" or J. V. Luce's suggestion that Crantor sent "a special enquiry to Egypt" and that he may simply be referring to Plato's own claims. Another passage from the commentary by Proclus on
15708-492: The time of the events (more than 9,000 years before his time ) and the alleged location of Atlantis ("beyond the Pillars of Hercules ") gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films. While present-day philologists and classicists agree on
15840-467: The treaty, and in return the Athenians had held Pylos . More recently, Athenian and Spartan troops had fought at the Battle of Mantinea in 418, with Athens supporting Argos , Mantinea , and other Peloponnesian cities in an attempt to establish a stable anti-Spartan alliance in the Peloponnese. That attempt, largely orchestrated by the Athenian nobleman Alcibiades, would have destroyed Sparta's control over
15972-450: The whole expedition, but instead they chose to send reinforcements, under Demosthenes and Eurymedon . Eurymedon left immediately with ten ships, and Demosthenes left sometime later with a much larger force. Meanwhile, in early 413 BC Sparta acted on Alcibiades's advice to fortify Decelea, and the Athenian force sent to relieve it was destroyed. While Eurymedon was sailing, Gylippus's 80 Syracusan ships, including 35 triremes, attacked 60 of
16104-405: The winter. Hermocrates suggested that the Syracusans reorganize their army. He wanted to reduce the number of generals from fifteen to three; Hermocrates, Heraclides , and Sicanus were elected and Hermocrates sent for help from Corinth and Sparta . During the winter the Athenians also sent for more money and cavalry, while the Syracusans built some forts, and a wall extending the territory of
16236-418: Was a fleet at all, because Athens would not be so foolish as to attack them while they were still at war with Sparta. Athenagoras accused Hermocrates and others of attempting to instill fear among the population and trying to overthrow the government. At the first assembly that authorized the expedition, the Athenians named Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus as its commanders; that decision remained unchanged at
16368-461: Was a threat—an unencumbered Syracuse might send grain or other aid to the Peloponnesians—as well as a venue for possible conquests. In 427 BC, Athens had sent twenty ships, under the command of Laches , in response to an appeal for help from Leontini . That expedition, operating from a base at Rhegium , remained in the area for several years, fighting alongside Athens's local allies against
16500-552: Was an Athenian military expedition to Sicily , which took place from 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens on one side and Sparta , Syracuse and Corinth on the other. The expedition ended in a devastating defeat for the Athenian forces, severely impacting Athens. The expedition was hampered from the outset by uncertainty in its purpose and command structure—political maneuvering in Athens swelled
16632-405: Was defended by Diomilus and 600 Syracusans. In the attack, Diomilus and 300 of his men were killed. Both sides then began building a series of walls. The Athenian circumvallation , known as "the Circle" , was meant to blockade Syracuse from the rest of the island, while the Syracusans built a number of counter-walls from the city to their various forts. A force of 300 Athenians destroyed part of
16764-427: Was equal in size to Libya or Asia" referring to Plato's geographical description of Atlantis. The early Christian apologist writer Arnobius also believed Atlantis once existed, but blamed its destruction on pagans. Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century wrote of Atlantis in his Christian Topography in an attempt to prove his theory that the world was flat and surrounded by water: ... In like manner
16896-494: Was not sunk (as Plato reports in the Timaeus ) so much as torn away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and flood... The traces of the ruptures are shown by the projections of Europe and Africa and the indentations of America in the parts of the coasts of these three said lands that face each other to anyone who, using a map of the world, carefully considered them. So that anyone may say with Strabo in Book 2, that what Plato says of
17028-461: Was originally dictated in Atlantis. She maintained that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes (contrary to Plato , who describes them mainly as a military threat). She believed in a form of racial evolution (as opposed to primate evolution). In her process of evolution the Atlanteans were the fourth " root race ", which were succeeded by the fifth, the " Aryan race ", which she identified with the modern human race. In her book, Blavatsky reported that
17160-399: Was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in
17292-414: Was somehow related to Mayan and Aztec culture. The French scholar Brasseur de Bourbourg traveled extensively through Mesoamerica in the mid-1800s, and was renowned for his translations of Mayan texts, most notably the sacred book Popol Vuh , as well as a comprehensive history of the region. Soon after these publications, however, Brasseur de Bourbourg lost his academic credibility, due to his claim that
17424-630: Was the predominant city-state in Sicily. The fleet proceeded to Catania , where an Athenian ship arrived to inform Alcibiades that he was under arrest, not only for the destruction of the hermai, but also for supposedly profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries . Alcibiades agreed to return in his ship, but when they stopped in southern Italy at Thurii , he escaped and sailed to the Peloponnese , where he sought refuge in Sparta. Athens passed
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