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7LBoots t1_ivkgbst wrote

Reply to comment by Qwez81 in TIL that the "Lost City of Atlantis" was invented by the philosopher Plato, as a fake enemy for Athens that lost favour of the gods and was sunk in to the sea. by PDRugby

Even if it was entirely fictional, it wasn't Plato that made it up, right?

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Qwez81 t1_ivkgytz wrote

Yea Plato is correct…everything else is ummm speculation at best?

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predicateofregret t1_ivlxv3i wrote

Plato said it was based on a story told to a distant relative of his who has travelled in Egypt.

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jimmyn0thumbs t1_ivmcbp5 wrote

The original "trust me bro"

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vinneh t1_ivmw4tn wrote

My uncle works at Atlantis

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LurkJerk55 t1_ivnwbv5 wrote

My canadian girlfriend I'm dating over the internet is from Atlantis

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PegaLaMega t1_ivoqsko wrote

My brother's sister used to date Plato. Total jerk-off.

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BrokenEye3 t1_ivn6rtf wrote

A friend of a friend swears his friend has a friend whose friend was friends with a friend of a guy who saw it with his own eyes

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plugubius t1_ivmnvse wrote

Not quite. Plato had an obviously lying character in a dialogue say he had records (but not with him, of course)

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SteakHoagie666 t1_ivm1vo4 wrote

Heroditus actually had a city on his map of the known world named "Atlantes". So the tale was around longer than Plato.

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freiwilliger t1_ivm8b5u wrote

That referred to people from Mount Atlas not the mythical island.

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SteakHoagie666 t1_ivm9hw8 wrote

It wasn't a mythical island until plato said it was a mythical island. It could've been used as some inspiration for the tale. But who knows.

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Torugu t1_ivnxhox wrote

No, not "who knows".

The "Atlantes" are a group of ancient Libyans* who lived in the Atlas mountains. It's not a city, it's a tribe, their history is well established and their descendants are still around today.

The Atlantes are completely unrelated to the mythical Atlanteans. They have literally nothing in common except that their names sound vaguely similar. This is about as close to fact as anything can be.

​

^(*Libya referring here to all of North Africa West of Egypt, not just the modern country)

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SteakHoagie666 t1_ivnyb68 wrote

In platos story one of the sons of posieden, Atlas is " made rightful king of the entire island(atlantis) and the ocean (called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his fiefdom."- from Wiki.

So.. I mean... the king of atlantis is named after the mountain range and ruled over the area as his fiefdom.. in platos story... but if you're sure there was no connection and no inspiration whatsoever drawn from it Okey fuckin dokey.

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sennbat t1_ivlzorx wrote

It was Plato, yes, in Timaeus, which we still have copies of. You can read a translation of it here: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

It's possible it was inspired by some other story (in the same way as the places in "Gullivers Travels" are inspired by real places and previous stories, I suppose), but Atlantis itself, and certainly all the details he gives, are clearly created part of the allegory.

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BirdUp69 t1_ivmw4kj wrote

I would say the Critias comes across as allegory with regards to Atlantis, describing something like a Utopia. The Timaeus is more matter of fact, describing key historical point passed down through Solon.

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Gyddanar t1_ivo3rde wrote

Technically Atlantis wasn´t a utopia - or if it had been, it was a fallen/failed one.

It was set in a fictional time period where everything was just "better". The tone you should be going for while reading Critias and Timaeus is something like "these days, everything is shit".

The utopias in Timaeus are the Mythic/Golden Athens and arguably Egypt (if only as a source of wisdom, knowledge, and learning)

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