Εμφανίζονται 4 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο για το τοπωνύμιο: "ΑΤΛΑΝΤΙΣ Μυθικοί τόποι ΑΡΧΑΙΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΣ ΚΟΣΜΟΣ".
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Atlantis (he Atlantis nesos: Eth. Atlantinoi, Procl. ad Plat. Tim.;
Schol. in Plat. Rep. p. 327), the Island of Atlas, is first mentioned by Plato,
in the Timaeus, and the Critias. He introduces the story as a part of a conversation
respecting the ancient history of the world, held by Solon with an old priest
of Sais in Egypt. As an example of the ignorance of the Greeks concerning the
events of remote ages, and in particular of the Athenians respecting the exploits
of their own forefathers, the priest informs Solon that the Egyptian records preserved
the memory of the fact, that 9000 years earlier the Athenians had repelled an
invading force, which had threatened the subjugation of all Europe and Asia too.
This invasion came from the Atlantic Sea, which was at that time navigable. In
front of the strait called the Pillars of Hercules (and evidently, according to
Plato's idea, not far from it), lay an island (which he presently calls Atlantis),
greater than Libya and Asia taken together, from which island voyagers could pass
to other islands, and from them to the opposite continent, which surrounds that
sea, truly so called (i. e. the Atlantic). For the waters within the strait (i.
e. the Mediterranean), may be regarded as but a harbour, having a narrow entrance;
but that is really a sea, and the land which surrounds it may with perfect accuracy
be called a continent (Tim. p. 24, e-25, a.).
The above passage is quoted fully to show the notion which it exhibits,
when rightly understood, that beyond and on the opposite side of the Atlantic
there was a vast continent, between which and the W. shores of Europe and Libya
were a number of islands, the greatest of which, and the nearest to our world,
was that called Atlantis.
In this island of Atlantis, he adds, there arose a great and powerful
dynasty of kings, who became masters of the whole island, and of many of the other
islands and of parts of the continent. And moreover, on this side the Atlantic,
within the Straits, they ruled over Libya up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia.
They next assembled their whole force for the conquest of the rest of the countries
on the Mediterranean; but the Athenians, though deserted by their allies, repelled
the invaders, and restored the liberty of all the peoples within the Pillars of
Hercules. But afterwards came great earthquakes and floods, by which the victors
in the contest were swallowed up beneath the earth, and the island of Atlantis
was engulphed in the sea, which has ever since been unnavigable by reason of the
shoals of mud created by the sunken island. (Tim. p. 25, a-d.)
The story is expanded in the Critias (p. 108, e, foil.), where, however,
the latter part of it is unfortunately lost. Here Plato goes back to the original
partition of the earth among the gods, and (what is of some importance as to the
interpretation of the legend), he particularly marks the fact that, of the two
parties in this great primeval conflict, the Athenians were the people of Athena
and Hephaestus, but the Atlantines the people of Poseidon. The royal race was
the offspring of Poseidon and of Cleito, a mortal woman, the daughter of Evenor,
one of the original earthborn inhabitants of the island, of whose residence in
the centre of the island Plato gives a particular description. (Crit. p. 113,
c-e.) Cleito bore to Poseidon five pairs of twins, who became the heads of ten
royal houses, each ruling a tenth portion of the island, according to a partition
made by Poseidon himself, but all subject to the supreme dynasty of Atlas, the
eldest of the ten, on whom Poseidon conferred the place in the centre of the island,
which had been before the residence of Evenor, and which he fortified and erected
into the capital. We have then a minute description of the strength and magnificence
of this capital; of the beauty and fertility of the island, with its lofty mountains,
its abundant rivers, its exuberant vegetation, its temperate climate, its irrigation
by natural moisture in the winter, and by a system of aqueducts in the summer,
its mineral wealth, its abundance in all species of useful animals; and the magnificent
works of art with which it was adorned, especially at the royal residences. We
have also a full account of the people; their military order; their just and simple
government, and the oaths by which they bound themselves to obey it; their laws,
which enjoined abstinence from all attacks on one another, and submission to the
supreme dynasty of the family of Atlas, with many other particulars. For many
generations, then, as long as the divine nature of their founder retained its
force among them, they continued in a state of unbounded prosperity, based on
wisdom, virtue, temperance, and mutual regard; and, during this period, their
power grew to the height previously related. But at length, the divine element
in their nature was over powered by continual admixture with the human, so that
the human character prevailed in them over the divine; and thus becoming unfit
to bear the prosperity they had reached, they sank into depravity: no longer understanding
the true kind of life which gives happiness, they believed their glory and happiness
to consist in cupidity and violence. Upon this, Jove, resolving to punish them,
that they might be restored to order and moderation, summoned a council of the
gods, and addressed them in words which are lost with the rest of this dialogue
of Plato.
The truth or falsehood, the origin and meaning, of this legend, have
exercised the critical and speculative faculties of ancient and modern writers.
That it was entirely an invention of Plato's, is hardly credible; for, even if
his derivation of the legend from Egypt through Solon, and his own assertion that
the story is strange but altogether true (Tim. p. 20, d.) be set down to his dramatic
spirit, we have still the following indications of its antiquity. First, if we
are to believe a Scholiast on Plato (Repub. p. 327), the victory of the Athenians
over the Atlantines was represented on one of the pepli which were dedicated at
the Panathenaea. Diodorus also refers to this war (iii. 53). Then, the legend
is found in other forms, which do not seem to be entirely copied from Plato.
Thus Aelian relates at length a very similar story, on the authority
of Theopompus, who gave it as derived from a Phrygian source, in the form of a
relation by the satyr Silenus to the Phrygian Midas; and Strabo just mentions,
on the authority of Theopompus and Apollodorus, the same legend, in which the
island was called Meropis and the people Meropes (Meropis, Meropes, the word used
by Homer and Hesiod in the sense of endowed with the faculty of articulate speech:
Aelian, V. H. iii. 18, comp. the Notes of Perizonius; Strab. vii. p. 299: comp.
Tertull. de Pallio, 2.)
Diodorus, also, after relating the legend of the island in a form
very similar to Plato's story, adds that it was discovered by some Phoenician
navigators who, while sailing along the W. coast of Africa, were driven by violent
winds across the Ocean. They brought back such an account of the beauty and resources
of the island, that the Tyrrhenians, having obtained the mastery of the sea, planned
an expedition to colonize the new land, but were hindered by the opposition of
the Carthaginians. (Diod. v. 19, 20.) Diodorus does not mention the name of the
island; and he differs from Plato by referring to it as still existing. Pausanias
relates that a Carian Euphernus had told him of a voyage during which he had been
carried by the force of the winds into the outer sea, into which men no longer
sail; where he came to desert islands, inhabited by wild men with tails, whom
the sailors, having previously visited the islands, called Satyrs, and the islands
Saturides (i. 23. § 5, 6); whom some take for monkeys; unless the whole narrative
be an imposture on the grave traveller. Another account is quoted by Proclus (ad
Plat. Tim. p. 55) from the Aethiopica of Marcellus, that there were seven islands
in the Outer Sea, which were sacred to Persephone, and three more, sacred to Pluto,
Ammon, and Poseidon; and that the inhabitants of this last preserved from their
ancestors the memory of the exceedingly large island of Atlantis, which for many
ages had ruled over all the islands in the Atlantic Sea, and which had been itself
sacred to Poseidon. Other passages might be quoted, but the above are the most
important.
The chief variations of opinion, in ancient and modern times, respecting
these traditions, are the following. As to their origin, some have ascribed them
to the hypotheses, or purely fictitious inventions of the early poets and philosophers;
while others have accepted them as containing at least an element of fact, and
affording, as the ancients thought, evidence of the existence of unknown lands
in the Western Ocean, and, as some modern writers suppose, indications that America
was not altogether unknown to the peoples of antiquity. As to the significance
of the legend, in the form which it received from the imagination of the poets
and philosophers, some have supposed that it is only a form of the old tradition
of the golden age; others, that it was a symbolical representation of the contest
between the primeval powers of nature and the spirit of art and science, which
plays so important a part in the old mythology; and others that it was merely
intended by Plato as a form of exhibiting his ideal polity: the second of these
views is ably supported by Proclus in his commentary on the Timaeus; and has a
great deal to be said in its favour. As to the former question, how far the legend
may contain an element of fact, it seems impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion.
Those who regard it as pure fiction, but of an early origin, view it as arising
out of the very ancient notion, found in Homer and Hesiod, that the abodes of
departed heroes were in the extreme west, beyond the river Oceanus, a locality
naturally assigned as beyond the boundaries of the inhabited earth. That the fabulous
prosperity and happiness of the Atlantines was in some degree connected with those
poetical representations, is very probable; just as, when islands were actually
discovered off the coast of Africa, they were called the Islands of the Blest.
But still, important parts of the legend are thus left unaccounted for; its mythological
character, its derivation from the Egyptian priests, or other Oriental sources;
and, what is in Plato its most important part, the supposed conflict of the Atlantines
with the people of the old world. A strong argument is derived also from the extreme
improbability of any voyagers, at that early period, having found their way in
safety across the Atlantic, and the double draft upon credulity involved in the
supposition of their safe return; the return, however, being generally less difficult
than the outward voyage. But this argument, though strong, is not decisive against
the possibility of such a voyage. The opinions of the ancients may be gathered
up in a few words. Proclus (ad Tim. p. 24) tells us that Crantor, the first commentator
on Plato, took the account for a history, but acknowledged that he incurred thereby
the ridicule of his contemporaries. Strabo (ii. p. 102) barely mentions the legend,
quoting the opinion of Poseidonius, that it was possibly true; and Pliny refers
to it with equal brevity (vi. 31. s. 36). But of far more importance than these
direct references, is the general opinion, which seems to have prevailed more
or less from the time when the globular figure of the earth was established, that
the known world occupied but a small portion of its surface, and that there might
be on it other islands, besides our triple continent. Some statements to this
effect are quoted in the preceding article. Mela expressly affirms the existence
of such another island, but he places it in the southern temperate zone (i. 9.
§ 2). Whether such opinions were founded on the vague records of some actual discovery,
or on old mythical or poetical representations, or on the basis of scientific
hypothesis, can no longer be determined; but, from whatever source, the anticipation
of the discovery of America is found (not to mention other and less striking instances)
in a well-known passage of Seneca's Medea, which is said to have made a deep impression
on the mind of Columbus (Act ii. v. 375, et seq.):
Venient annis saecula series,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet,
et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes;
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
In modern times the discussion has been carried on with great ingenuity, but with
no certain result. All that has been said, or perhaps that can be said upon it,
is summed up in the Appendix of Cellarius to his great work on ancient geography,
De Novo Orbe, an cognitus fuerit veteribus (vol. ii. p. 251-254), and in Alexander
von Humboldt's Kritische Untersuchungen uber die historische Entwickelung der
geographischen Kenntnisse der neuen Welt, Berlin, 1826.
One point seems to deserve more consideration than it has received
from the disputants on either side; namely, whether the stories of ancient voyagers,
which seem to refer to lands across the Atlantic, may not, after all, be explained
equally well by supposing that the distant regions reached by these adventurers
were only parts of the W. shores of Europe or Africa, the connection of which
with our continent was not apparent to the mariners who reached them after long
beating about in the Atlantic. By the earliest navigators everything beyond the
Straits would be regarded as remote and strange. The story of Euphemus, for example,
might be almost matched by some modern adventures with negroes or apes on the
less known parts of the W. coast of Africa. It is worthy of particular notice,
that Plato describes Atlantis as evidently not far from the Straits, and allots
the part of it nearest our continent to Gadeirus, the twin brother of Atlas, the
hero eponymus of the city of Gades or Gadeira (Cadiz). If this explanation be
at all admissible (merely as the ultimate core of fact round which the legend
grew up), it is quite conceivable that, when improved knowledge had assigned the
true position to the coasts thus vaguely indicated, their disappearance from their
former supposed position would lead to the belief that they had been swallowed
up by the ocean. On this hypothesis, too, the war of the Atlantines and the Greeks
might possibly refer to some very ancient conflict with the peoples of western
Europe.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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