Message #160298

[Autolocus]

LOCATION AND SIZE OF ATLANTIS 17

contrived their most distinctive features. The myth of Perseus,
like that of Theseus and the Minotaur, meant something dimly
and distantly historic. We think we partly understand the latter
after the excavations in Crete. Similarly, the flights and feats of
Perseus, as given in mythology, may be another way of saying
that he made swift voyages far afield and descended on his
enemies with deadly execution.

These tales as we have them from Diodorus do not represent
the Atlantic coast dwellers as invading the Mediterranean; but
some such incursions would naturally follow, by way of retalia-
tion, the strenuous proceedings attributed to eastern-Mediter-
ranean commanders, if, indeed, they did not precede and provoke
them. We need not picture a host of Atlantides pouring through
between the Pillars; but piratical descents of outer seafaring
people were probable enough and might be on a rather large
scale subject, of course, to exaggeration by rumor. Nor would
any of the threatened people be likely to distinguish closely be-
tween forces from a mainland coast and those from some out-
lying island. The enemy might well embody both elements.