5. Did we bring it about,
that ten thousand years ago a vast number of men burst forth from the
island which is called the Atlantis of Neptune,3254
| 3254 In
the Timæus of Plato, c. vi. st. p. 24, an old priest
of Saïs, in Egypt, is represented as telling Solon that in times
long gone by the Athenians were a very peaceful and very brave people,
and that 9,000 years before that time they had overcome a mighty host
which came rushing from the Atlantic Sea, and which threatened to
subjugate all Europe and Asia. The sea was then navigable, and in
front of the pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) lay an island
larger than Africa and Asia together: from it travellers could
pass to other islands, and from these again to the opposite
continent. In this island great kings arose, who made themselves
masters of the whole island, as well as of other islands, and parts of
the continent. Having already possessions in Libya and Europe,
which they wished to increase, they gathered an immense host; but it
was repelled by the Athenians. Great earthquakes and storms
ensued, in which the island of Atlantis was submerged, and the sea ever
after rendered impassable by shoals of mud produced by the sunken
island. For other forms of this legend, and explanations of it,
see Smith’s Dictionary of Geography, under
Atlantis; [also Ancient America, p. 175, Harpers,
1872. This volume, little known, seems to me “stranger than
fiction,” and far more interesting]. |
as Plato tells us, and utterly ruined
and
blotted out countless
tribes? Did this form a prejudice
against us, that between the Assyrians and Bactrians, under the
leadership of Ninus and Zoroaster of old, a struggle was maintained not
only by the
sword and by physical
power, but also by magicians, and by
the mysterious learning of the Chaldeans? Is it to be laid to the
charge of our
religion, that Helen was carried off under the guidance
and at the instigation of the gods, and that she became a direful
destiny to her own and to after times? Was it because of our
name, that that
mad-cap Xerxes let the ocean in upon the
land, and that
he marched over the
sea on
foot? Did we produce and stir into
action the causes, by reason of which one
youth, starting from
Macedonia, subjected the
kingdoms and peoples of the East to
captivity
and to
bondage? Did we, forsooth, urge the deities into frenzy,
so that the Romans lately, like some swollen torrent, overthrew all
nations, and swept them beneath the flood? But if there is no man
who would dare to attribute to our times those things which took place
long ago, how can we be the causes of the present misfortunes, when
nothing new is occurring, but all things are old, and were unknown to
none of the ancients?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
