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Qoais
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Just a bit of a repeat here, but maybe a bit more coherent:
Once upon a very loooong time ago, the "Gods" divided the earth amongst themselves. (According to Plato)
So - does that mean the whole planet? I would say yes, since these Gods seemed to need a lot of room, and also seemed to be constantly fighting each other and we see ruins in all parts of the world. From reading about these "gods" they were beyond "super" human, so what were they? What were the ancients calling "gods"? Some being(s) that had incredible knowledge and powers of some sort.
Ok - so Poseidon got his territory, and who knows how many gods there were in the very beginning? So let's say one god got South America, Poseidon got Atlantis, and whatever other Gods there were, divied up the rest of the world equally. Or picked choice locations for themselves at least. (Seems they all picked waterfront property anyway)!
Ok - so at the very beginning, we're concerned with Poseidon - and he marries Cleito, and has a bunch of kids. Time moves on, and these families go forth and multiply - but keep the spiritual and lawful ways their "god-father" taught them.
Now wherever this land was, it seems to have been front and centre in the "eventual" civilized world, since they received goodies from all the surrounding countries.
Time moves on, things develop. Boats are invented, horses are used, the wheel is discovered, etc. SOMEWHERE in time, other peoples develop. From where? Well, they must have developed from one of the other "gods" since apparently that was all there was in the beginning. Gods. Also somewhere in time, back when the Atlanteans were still in their peaceful mode, the Amazons were not - and they attacked the Atlanteans - their neighbors. Then, after the Atlanteans said "Hey, we concede - just don't wreck all our cities", the Amazons made friendly with the Atlanteans and fought the Gorgons, on one of Atlantis' borders. Now how many borders does an ISLAND have? Hee Hee - one! BUT - if we accept that the word used was Nesos - meaning - well, all those things that were mentioned before, then we'd have a peninsula, and a peninsula is joined to a mainland. Diodorus describes the land of the Amazons, and it compares very nicely to the land of the Atlanteans, will all the good food, and precious stones, etc.
So - there may be a little confusion as to exactly where the Amazons originated, but Diodorus says the island of Mene, which supposedly was in Lake Tritonis, in what is now Tunisia. Makes sense - especially if they attacked their neighbors to the west. The Atlanteans. Then the Amazons carry on, and make forays against the Libyans, they get to Egypt where they make friends with the ruler of the day, fight the Arabs, and continue on around the eastern end of the Med. till they get to Turkey and the Greek islands, putting up cities as they go.
Now while queen Myrina of the Amazons, is off doing these excursions into other lands, along comes Hercules to their home city of Cherronesus, and razes it to the ground. He puts up pillars to commemmorate his deed, but lo and behold, if Cherronesus doesn't end up in the brink, along with the Pillars of Hercules.
Stopping here for a moment - we have to picture Plato's story like a modern day movie that does flash-backs. Sometimes he is talking at his own time line, and sometimes he is talking about things in the ancient past.
Somewhere along the time line, the Atlanteans start turning to their dark side, and take control of Europe to Italy, and Libya to the borders of Egypt.
Trying to follow this bouncing time line then - at one time, the borders of the western world were Atlantis and Amazonland. Therefore the borders of the western world way back, was at modern Tunisia. Africa was joined to Sicily with a land bridge. When the city of the Amazons sunk, along with Hercules' pillars, this now left the Med open and the western extremity of the world became Gibralter. Since THAT time, whenever it was, the western extremity of the world was referred to as the Pillars of Hercules, that were recognizable to Plato as such.
Yes - in Plato's day, they called the Straits of Gibralter, the Pillars of Hercules - and even before his day. BUT - somewhere in time, the Pillars of Hercules - denoting the western extremity of the known world, were at Tunisia. Even the Egyptians didn't know their land was on a huge continent until they sent out an expedition to find out. As someone pointed out to me, lands were called "islands" or peninsulas, that hadn't been sailed all the way round, therefore, if one sees nothing but water for thousands of miles, they think they're on an island. So in VERY ancient times, perhaps even when the Egyptians FIRST got the story, they thought Atlantis was an island, when perhaps instead, it was a mainland with very large peninsulas sticking out from it.
I think - that being the story was old even to the Egyptians, that the western end of the Med., was considered at the time of the story - to be part of the ocean. It would seem so to anyone on the inside of the landbridge at Sicily. If nothing else, once you were in the western Med, you certainly could navigate the ocean. And it would seem that they DID navigate it before Atlantis sunk, causing that shoal of mud. Those on the eastern end of the Med, were cut off for a while.
So taking into consideration the bouncing time-line, the confusion about island and peninsula, the story of the Amazons vs. the Atlanteans, the goodies arriving in Atlantis from the surrounding countries and the grand finale being this supposed war started by the Atlanteans against the Athenians and Egyptians "at a blow", I contend that Atlantis WAS not an island, but a peninsula of the mainland of Africa, with it's temple city in the vicinity of Malta. In this theory, it was definitely bigger than Libya and Asia "together" not between the two. For the simple fact that Atlantis was probably the whole western "Nesos" of Africa.
PLEASE REMEMBER I AM NOT DOING THIS SCIENTIFICALLY AND HAVE NOT PROVEN ANYTHING WITH EVIDENCE OR OTHERWISE. I AM SIMPLY PUTTING TOGETHER ALL THE INFORMATION I'VE COME ACROSS.
In my version of Plato, it says that Eumelous was given the extremity of the territory "facing" what Plato in his day, knew as Gades. That Gades, was named after Eumelous. Or - as some would have it, "beside" Gades, or "across from". Means all the same thing to me. I would say that Eumelous annexed Gades as part of his territory when they started expanding their control. Therefore, yes, way back in the beginning, Eumelous being of the first genration and being an Atlantean, annexes Gades and makes it a part of Atlantis.
If - to the Eastern Med. peoples, anything west of the landbridge at Sicily was called "ocean", then the only place that could become a shoal of mud blocking them off, was at Malta. Where the City of Atlas (Atlantis) was buried in the water and mud.
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