Complete Works (259 page)

“When Solon heard this he was astounded, he said, and with unreserved eagerness begged the priests to give him a detailed, consecutive account of all that concerned those ancient citizens. ‘I won’t grudge you this, Solon,’ the priest replied. ‘I’ll tell you the story for your own benefit as well as your city’s, and especially in honor of our patron goddess who has founded, nurtured and educated our cities, both yours and ours. Yours she founded first, a thousand years before ours, when she had received [e] from Earth and Hephaestus the seed from which your people were to come. Now our social arrangement, according to the records inscribed in our sacred documents, is eight thousand years old. Nine thousand years ago, then, did these fellow citizens of yours live, whose laws and whose finest achievement I’ll briefly describe to you. At another time we’ll go
[24]
through all the details one by one at our leisure and inspect the documents themselves.

“‘Let’s compare your ancient laws with ours today. You’ll discover many instances that once existed among you, existing among us today. First, you’ll find that the class of priests is marked off and separated from the other classes. Next, in the case of the working class, you’ll find that each group—the herdsmen, the hunters and the farmers—works independently, without mixing with the others. In particular, I’m sure you’ve noticed that [b] our warrior class has been separated from all the others. It’s been assigned by law to occupy itself exclusively with matters of war. Moreover, the style of armor used is that of shields and spears, which we were the first among the peoples of Asia to use for arming ourselves. The goddess instructed us just as she first instructed you in the regions where you live. Moreover, as for wisdom, I’m sure you can see how much attention our way of life here has devoted to it, right from the beginning. In our study [c] of the world order we have traced all our discoveries, including prophecy and health-restoring medicine, from those divine realities to human levels, and we have also acquired all the other related disciplines. This is in fact nothing less than the very same system of social order that the goddess first devised for you when she founded your city, which she did once she had chosen the region in which your people were born, and had discerned that the temperate climate in it throughout the seasons would bring forth [d] men of surpassing wisdom. And, being a lover of both war and wisdom, the goddess chose the region that was likely to bring forth men most like herself, and founded it first. And so you came to live there, and to observe laws such as these. In fact your laws improved even more, so that you came to surpass all other peoples in every excellence, as could be expected from those whose begetting and nurture were divine.

“‘Now many great accomplishments of your city recorded here are awe-inspiring, [e] but there is one that surely surpasses them all in magnitude and excellence. The records speak of a vast power that your city once brought to a halt in its insolent march against the whole of Europe and Asia at once—a power that sprang forth from beyond, from the Atlantic ocean. For at that time this ocean was passable, since it had an island in it in front of the strait that you people say you call the ‘Pillars of Heracles.’
³
This island was larger than Libya and Asia combined, and it provided passage to the other islands for people who traveled in those days. From
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those islands one could then travel to the entire continent on the other side, which surrounds that real sea beyond. Everything here inside the strait we’re talking about seems nothing but a harbor with a narrow entrance, whereas that really is an ocean out there and the land that embraces it all the way around truly deserves to be called a continent. Now on this Isle of Atlantis a great and marvelous royal power established itself, and ruled not only the whole island, but many of the other islands and parts of the continent as well. What’s more, their rule extended even inside the [b] strait, over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
⁴
Now one day this power gathered all of itself together, and set out to enslave all of the territory inside the strait, including your region and ours, in one fell swoop. Then it was, Solon, that your city’s might shone bright with excellence and strength, for all humankind to see. Preeminent among all others in the nobility of her spirit and in her use of all the arts of war, [c] she first rose to the leadership of the Greek cause. Later, forced to stand alone, deserted by her allies, she reached a point of extreme peril. Nevertheless she overcame the invaders and erected her monument of victory. She prevented the enslavement of those not yet enslaved, and generously freed all the rest of us who lived within the boundaries of Heracles. Some time [d] later excessively violent earthquakes and floods occurred, and after the onset of an unbearable day and a night, your entire warrior force sank below the earth all at once, and the Isle of Atlantis likewise sank below the sea and disappeared. That is how the ocean in that region has come to be even now unnavigable and unexplorable, obstructed as it is by a layer of mud at a shallow depth,
⁵
the residue of the island as it settled.’”

What I’ve just related, Socrates, is a concise version of old Critias’ story, [e] as Solon originally reported it. While you were speaking yesterday about politics and the men you were describing, I was reminded of what I’ve just told you and was quite amazed as I realized how by some supernatural chance your ideas are on the mark, in substantial agreement with what Solon said. I didn’t want to say so at the time, though. Because it had been
[26]
so long ago, I didn’t remember Solon’s story very well. So I realized that I would first have to recover the whole story for myself well enough, and then to tell it that way. That’s why I was so quick to agree to your assignment yesterday. The most important task in situations like these is to propose a speech that rewards people’s expectations, and so I thought that we would be well supplied if I gave this one. And that’s how—as Hermocrates has already said—the moment I left here yesterday, I began [b] to repeat the story to him and to Timaeus as it came back to me. After I left them I concentrated on it during the night and recovered just about the whole thing. They say that the lessons of childhood have a marvelous way of being retained. How true that is! In my case, I don’t know if I’d be able to recall everything I heard yesterday, but I’d be extremely surprised if any part of this story has gotten away from me, even though it’s been a very long time since I heard it. What I heard then gave me so much childlike pleasure—the old man was so eager to teach me because I kept [c] on asking one question after another—that the story has stayed with me like the indelible markings of a picture with the colors burnt in. Besides, I told the whole story to Timaeus and Hermocrates first thing this morning, so that not just I, but they, too, would have a supply of material for our speech.

I’ve said all this, Socrates, to prepare myself to tell Solon’s story now. I won’t just give you the main points, but the details, one by one, just the way I heard it. We’ll translate the citizens and the city you described to us in mythical fashion yesterday to the realm of fact, and place it before [d] us as though it is ancient Athens itself. And we’ll say that the citizens you imagined are the very ones the priest spoke about, our actual ancestors. The congruence will be complete, and our song will be in tune if we say that your imaginary citizens are the ones who really existed at that time. We’ll share the task among us, and we’ll all try our best to do justice to your assignment. What do you think, Socrates? Will this do as our speech, or should we look for another to replace it? [e]

S
OCRATES
: Well, Critias, what other speech could we possibly prefer to this one? We’re in the midst of celebrating the festival of the goddess, and this speech really fits the occasion. So it couldn’t be more appropriate. And of course the fact that it’s no made-up story but a true account is no small matter. How and where shall we find others to celebrate if we let these men go? We’ve no choice. Go on with your speech, then, and good
[27]
luck! It’s my turn now to sit back and listen to your speeches that pay back mine of yesterday.

C
RITIAS
: All right, Socrates, what do you think of the plan we’ve arranged for our guest gift to you? We thought that because Timaeus is our expert in astronomy and has made it his main business to know the nature of the universe, he should speak first, beginning with the origin of the universe, and concluding with the nature of human beings. Then I’ll go next, once I’m in possession of Timaeus’ account of the origin of human beings [b] and your account of how some of them came to have a superior education. I’ll introduce them, as not only Solon’s account but also his law would have it, into our courtroom and make them citizens of our ancient city—as really being those Athenians of old whom the report of the sacred records has rescued from obscurity—and from then on I’ll speak of them as actual Athenian citizens.

S
OCRATES
: Apparently I’ll be getting a complete, brilliant banquet of speeches in payment for my own. Very well then, Timaeus, the task of being our next speaker seems to fall to you. Why don’t you make an invocation to the gods, as we customarily do?

[c] T
IMAEUS
: That I will, Socrates. Surely anyone with any sense at all will always call upon a god before setting out on any venture, whatever its importance. In our case, we are about to make speeches about the universe—whether it has an origin or even if it does not
⁶
—and so if we’re not to go completely astray we have no choice but to call upon the gods and goddesses, and pray that they above all will approve of all we have [d] to say, and that in consequence we will, too. Let this, then, be our appeal to the gods; to ourselves we must appeal to make sure that you learn as easily as possible, and that I instruct you in the subject matter before us in the way that best conveys my intent.

As I see it, then, we must begin by making the following distinction: What is
that which always is
and has no becoming, and what is
that which
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becomes
⁷
but never is? The former is grasped by understanding, which involves a reasoned account. It is unchanging. The latter is grasped by opinion, which involves unreasoning sense perception. It comes to be and passes away, but never really is. Now everything that comes to be
⁸
must of necessity come to be by the agency of some cause, for it is impossible for anything to come to be without a cause. So whenever the craftsman
⁹
looks at what is always changeless and, using a thing of that kind as his model, reproduces its form and character, then, of necessity, all that he so [b] completes is beautiful. But were he to look at a thing that has come to be and use as his model something that has been begotten, his work will lack beauty.

Now as to the whole universe
¹⁰
or world order [
kosmos
]—let’s just call it by whatever name is most acceptable in a given context—there is a question we need to consider first. This is the sort of question one should begin with in inquiring into any subject. Has it always existed? Was there no origin from which it came to be? Or did it come to be and take its start from some origin? It has come to be. For it is both visible and tangible and it has a body—and all things of that kind are perceptible. And, as we [c] have shown, perceptible things are grasped by opinion, which involves sense perception. As such, they are things that come to be, things that are begotten. Further, we maintain that, necessarily, that which comes to be must come to be by the agency of some cause. Now to find the maker and father of this universe [
to pan
] is hard enough, and even if I succeeded, to declare him to everyone is impossible. And so we must go back and raise this question about the universe: Which of the two models did the maker use when he fashioned it? Was it the one that does not change and stays
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the same, or the one that has come to be? Well, if this world of ours is beautiful and its craftsman good, then clearly he looked at the eternal model. But if what it’s blasphemous to even say is the case, then he looked at one that has come to be. Now surely it’s clear to all that it was the eternal model he looked at, for, of all the things that have come to be, our universe is the most beautiful, and of causes the craftsman is the most excellent. This, then, is how it has come to be: it is a work of craft, modeled after that which is changeless and is grasped by a rational account, that is, by wisdom.

Since these things are so, it follows by unquestionable necessity that this [b] world is an image of something. Now in every subject it is of utmost importance to begin at the natural beginning, and so, on the subject of an image and its model, we must make the following specification: the accounts we give of things have the same character as the subjects they set forth. So accounts of what is stable and fixed and transparent to understanding are themselves stable and unshifting. We must do our very best to make these accounts as irrefutable and invincible as any account may be. On the other hand, accounts we give of that which has been formed to be [c] like that reality, since they are accounts of what is a likeness, are themselves likely, and stand in proportion to the previous accounts, i.e., what being is to becoming, truth is to convincingness. Don’t be surprised then, Socrates, if it turns out repeatedly that we won’t be able to produce accounts on a great many subjects—on gods or the coming to be of the universe—that are completely and perfectly consistent and accurate. Instead, if we can come up with accounts no less likely than any, we ought to be content, keeping in mind that both I, the speaker, and you, the judges, are only [d] human. So we should accept the likely tale on these matters. It behooves us not to look for anything beyond this.

S
OCRATES
: Bravo, Timaeus! By all means! We must accept it as you say we should. This overture of yours was marvellous. Go on now and let us have the work itself.