Message #44378

[Mark of Australia]

Hi Atalante ,cicero ,

I think that the old attitude of discrediting any reference to Atlantis that was set down on paper (papyrus etc) AFTER the time of Plato is disingenuous and poor logic .Just because it is on record as having been preserved for our eyes after the time of Plato doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually derived from Plato. Diodorus is the best example , he wrote well after Plato but his 'Atlantians' may be an independent survival of the Atlantis legend by a separate culture. The fact that the 'Atlantis' of Diodorus is quite different from Plato's and revolves around the Amazons seems to me to be telling that it really is a genuine memory of Atlantis by a different culture. It is said that Diodorus was a compiler of stories he heard,just like Herodotus. He may well have heard his account from Carthaginian North Africa where it's known he travelled.
 
 Of course no other story of Atlantis is as detailed as Plato's .But I do think there is very valuable information in Diodorus and other writers that helps to fill out our 'image' of Atlantis. The trick is to figure out which stories are accurate and which are the red herrings.

 I would say Diodorus has the next best account of Atlantis after Plato.