Where to start?
Let's start with the time line - which I know nothing about!
Diodorus Sicilus says he was copying older works when he wrote his books. In his works, he talks about the Amazons and how they attacked their neighbors, the Atlantians. I'm going to make the next line in caps because I think it's important. WHEN THE AMAZONS ATTACKED THE ATLANTIANS, IT WAS WAAAY BACK WHEN THE ATLANTIANS WERE STILL A PEACEFUL SPIRITUAL PEOPLE. So far back, that perhaps, whoever Diodorus is copying - in THEIR day, the edge of the Western world was today's Tunisia, and the western end of the Med. was considered part of the Oceanous.
Let's go to Plato - and HIS times. In his times, the western world has now stretched to the ends of the continents and he knows Spain is Spain etc. Plato says Atlantis is larger than Libya and Asia. Well, if you consider that the whole Western side of Africa was Atlantis, then yeah - it would be bigger. In my copy of Plato, it says that Eumelous' portion "faced" what was in Plato's time Gades.
That would be the "extremity" of Atlantis of course, since Atlantis was at the end of the Western world. The western extremity of the western extremity, was Morocco.
I don't know where all these other people came from, like the Amazons and the Gorgons, etc. but Siculus says that the Amazons fought the Gorgons on one of the borders of Atlantis, on behalf of the Atlanteans. IF and it's a big IF, the Amazons originated where we now call LAKE TRITONIS, then they fought their neighbors on the west (the Atlanteans), and then they continued on in their conquests, across Libya, made friends with the Egyptians, fought the Arabs, and swung around to Turkey and the Greek islands, building cities wherever they went.
Then along comes Hercules, and takes on their main base at Cherronesus, wipes it out, and puts up some pillars to comemmorate his exploits. Cherronesus ends up sunken in the water, (as do the pillars). Somewhere in here, the Atlanteans are turning to their dark side, and they take control of Libya to the borders of Egypt, and also Italy. Not hard to do if they have THEIR main city on a then NESOS (nose) with their temple hill being in the vicinity of Malta. Which was a man-made island- cut thru with canals, so they could egress out either side. The western end of the Med would be considered part of the ocean, since it was open, but the eastern end was a harbour. They COULD sail the ocean - if they could get to it, which it seems, they used to do, before Atlantis sunk causing a mud blockage.
After that part of Atlantis sunk, the Western end of the world became Gibralter. I've always maintained that the time line is important, because to me, Plato goes back and forth in time - like a flash-back in a movie. So - if Atlantis was this super large country with the best part being around Malta, then Nikas would be right in saying that the Temple city is in the water there. It makes a lot of sense to me (other than that Siculus says the Amazons city was at the Atlas mountains) but I don't know exactly where the mountains end, and maybe there was a bit of confusion over that in ancient times as well. The Lady of Elks (or however it's spelled) was found I believe in the South eastern part of Spain. Makes sense if she was an Atlantean noble.
The way I read Plato - was that Eumelous was given the extremity of Atlantis - that point furthest away from Egypt - as the story is being told - but that HIS portion faced a country which was eventually named after him - Gades. Whether he took it over and annexed it, (must have, since the Atlanteans controlled all the way to Italy) and perhaps, he named it after himself or whether he was just a great guy and it was named after him, who knows? Perhaps the Lady of Elks was of his family line, and they ruled from the southern shores.
