Your welcome Bianca. Thanks for the nice pic of the stone. Is that Atlas in the middle?
The Legend of Atlantis was told by the Egyptian Priest to Solon who passed on a copy to his friend and relative Dropides.
Dropides is the Great-Grandfather to Critias II and the Father of Critias I. We don't know in the story what the name of Critias II's father was who was the son of Critias I.
Plato must have been working from that copy from Dropides which Critias II had in his possession as he himself stated.
Also,their must have been a scribe recording the conversation of the contest at the theatre for Plato to be able to write everything that was said during that time around 420.bC This would appear to mean that Plato had 2 documents to work from perhaps while he was in the service of Dionysios The Tyrant in Syracuse around 360.bC when he wrote Timaeus and Critias.
Egyptian Priest > Solon(570.bC) > Dropides(Great Grandfather) > Critias I(Grandfather-90yrs old) > Critias II(10 years old) > Plato.(360.bC)
Plato wrote the legend of Atlantis in two dialogues.
PART I; - Timaeus
PART II; - Critias
In the Timaeus,Critias II is reciting from memory what his Grandfather,Critias I told him and Amynander at the Apaturia festival and what the Egyptian priest of Sais told Solon.
On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.
And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples.
As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones;
For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city "WHICH NOW" is Athens was first in war
You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves.
If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you
For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end.
This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits;and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. 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 is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.
I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us.
And now, Socrates, to make an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians.
-Solon,the wisest man in greece tells the egyptian priest the greek histories from Phoroneus(ca1800.bC.)and the only flood he knows as Deukalion(ca1529.bC) and we learn he is calculating the years by generations of the ancestors.
-priest ridicules Solon over the generational count as tales of children
-Atlantean war at a time before the flood of Deukalion and after the founding of Attica and Sais. The city was not called Athens at the time of the Atlantean war.("when the city which is NOW Athens")
-9000 years prior to Solon is the timespan, 1000 years after Sais is founded or 8000 years prior to Solon's visit. Somewhere near this time was the Atlantean war ("as touching your citizens of 9000 years ago...and of their most famous action")
- all records were preserved in the temples at the sacred registers which Solon and the priest could view THE EXACT particulars. This would mean that the Egyptian priest memorized the number of 8000 years for Sais as the span of generations of their ancestors.
- The priest also said that ASIA was being attacked also and he also called themselves Asiatics.
- The weaponry was shields and spears
- The ancient greeks defeated the Atlanteans and ended the war.
- Afterwards the great disaster occured which not only sunk Atlantis island outside of the straites but also destroyed the greeks at home and blocked the straites of gibraltar. Such was the huge extent of the deluge that would have been greater than Deukalion's "mythical biblical" flood.
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Critias intends to transfer the ancient greeks into the city of Athens.PART II. The Critias.