Complete Works (274 page)

Outside and surrounding the temple there stood gold statues of all the descendants of the ten kings and their wives and many other dedications of great size made by the kings and private individuals who came from the city of Atlantis itself and from the subject peoples elsewhere. There
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was an altar on the same scale as the temple and its workmanship was equally lavish. The palace was magnificent in its monumental architecture and it was worthy of the greatness of their empire and the adornment of the temple and shrines.

They drew their water from two springs—a spring of cold water and a spring of hot water. Both had an abundant flow and in the amazing natural freshness and quality of its waters each had its own use. They built fountain houses around them and plantations of trees suitable to the temperature [b] of the waters. And they also built reservoirs around the springs. Some they left open, but to the north they covered the reservoirs to convert them to warm baths. The reservoirs of the kings were separate from those of the rest of the population. Some reservoirs were reserved for the use of women, others for watering horses and other draft animals, and each they fashioned appropriately to its use. The overflow they channeled into the grove of Posidon, where, thanks to the fertility of the soil, there grew all varieties of trees of extraordinary beauty and height. They also irrigated the outer land rings by means of canals that crossed over along the bridges joining them.

Here there were constructed numerous shrines to numerous gods and [c] the land was laid out for many orchards and gymnasia. There were gymnasia for men on each of the two ring islands and tracks for horses were set apart as well. And, remarkably, through the middle of the greatest of the islands they laid out a separate race course for horses, one stade wide, and it extended in a circle around the entire island. Located on each side of the central race course were quarters for the palace guard.

The garrison of the most reliable soldiers was established on the smaller [d] of the ring islands, the island situated nearest to the acropolis. And quarters were built on the acropolis for the most reliable soldiers of all, surrounding the palaces of the kings themselves. The ship-sheds were filled with triremes and all the fittings needed for triremes, and all were in good working order. Such, then, were the buildings they constructed around the [dwellings of the] kings themselves.

Now, once you had crossed over the three rings of water, you would come to a circuit wall that began at the sea and surrounded the greatest [e] of the land rings on all sides at a uniform distance of fifty stades from the greatest land ring and its harbor. It began at the point where the channel had been dug through to the sea. The entire area within was settled by a dense population whose houses were crowded close together. The waterway into the interior and the greatest harbor was teeming with ships and crowds of merchants who had arrived from all over the world and whose voices and bustle produced a commotion and hubbub that could be heard day and night.

I have recalled this description of the capital and the ancient dwelling of the kings pretty much as it was told [to Solon] at that time. But now I
[118]
must attempt to recall the nature of the rest of the country and the manner in which it was improved. To begin with, the priests said that the entire country was very high and that it rose sheer from the sea. The entire plain that surrounded the capital was itself surrounded by a ring of mountains that sloped down as far as the sea. The plain was smooth and level and entirely rectangular. On its long sides it extended for three thousand stades and, as measured from the sea, it was over two thousand stades across. The slope of the island was to the south and it was protected from the [b] northerly winds. The mountains surrounding the plain were legendary for their number and size and beauty. None of the mountain ranges that exist today can compare with them. They contained on their slopes and in their valleys many populous and wealthy villages. And they contained rivers and lakes and meadows that supplied enough to feed all the animals there, both domesticated and wild. In their abundance and variety, the shrubs and trees were plentiful for all kinds of constructions and uses.

I will now relate how this plain had been developed by nature, and by [c] many kings and over a long period of time. For the most part, the plain was naturally rectangular, regular, and oblong. Where it was not perfectly straight and even they evened it out by excavating a Great Canal around it. As described, its depth and width and length provoke disbelief, since it was the work of human hands and so vast when compared to the other building projects. Nevertheless, I must repeat precisely what we heard then. The Great Canal was excavated to the depth of a plethron, it measured [d] a stade wide along its entire length, and as it framed the entire plain it came to a total length of ten thousand stades. As it received the flow of water that came off the mountains, and as this water circulated and reached the city on two sides, the trench allowed the water to flow out to the sea. Towards the interior, canals were cut in straight lines from the city over the plain a hundred feet broad at most and these emptied their waters into the Great Canal facing the sea. These were spaced at an interval of a hundred stades. They also cut horizontal connecting channels linking one [e] canal with another and with the city, and it is by these canals that they transported timber and the other products of the land on barges from the mountains to the city.

They harvested their crops twice a year. In the winter season they relied on the water of Zeus-sent rains, and in the summer season they used the waters stored in the earth drawing it into their canal system to irrigate the crops.

Now, as for the numbers of the men of the plain who were fit to serve in the army: each military district was assigned to contribute one commander.
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The area of each district was as much as a hundred stades. The total of these districts came to sixty thousand. And as far as the population of the mountainous regions and the rest of the country goes, it was said to be too large to calculate. But, counted by regions and villages, all men fit for military service were assigned to one of the sixty thousand military districts and they served under the commander of each district. In times of war each commander was assigned to have in readiness a sixth part of the complement of a war chariot as a contribution to a force of ten thousand [b] chariots; and in addition, two horses and two riders, a pair of horses without a chariot, with its complement of two riders, a runner, a rider who could fight on foot armed with a small shield, and serving as a charioteer a rider who could mount either horse, two hoplites, two archers, and two sling men; three light armed soldiers with stones and three with javelins. He also had to contribute four sailors to the crews manning twelve thousand ships. These were the principles for raising an army in the royal city. The formulas varied in the nine other cities, and it would take a long time to describe them.

[c] The original ordering of powers and honors in Atlantis was as follows. Within his own patrimony and in his own city, each of the ten kings held power over the inhabitants and over most of the laws, and he could punish or put to death whomever he wished. But, as for their common empire and federation, the kings were regulated by the laws of Posidon as these had been passed down by tradition and according to an inscription which the first kings had cut on a stele of
oreichalkos.
This inscription was placed [d] in the middle of the island in the sanctuary of Posidon. Here in every fifth or sixth year, and in alternating sequence, it was their custom to gather. To both the even and to the odd they accorded an equal share. Once they had assembled, they deliberated on matters of common concern and held an assize to determine if anyone of them had broken the law, and they gave judgment. Whenever they were about to declare judgment, they first offered one another pledges in this manner: as all ten kings were alone in the sanctuary of Posidon, where bulls had been allowed to run free, they joined in prayer to ask the god to be allowed to capture the bull which would be the most acceptable offering to him. They pursued the bulls with [e] staffs and nooses—but with no iron weapon, and they led the bull they had captured to the stele.
¹²
There they slaughtered it on the crest of the stele and let its blood spill down over the inscription. In addition to the laws written on the stele there was an oath inscribed calling terrible curses down upon those who broke them. And, when they had then sacrificed the bull following this ritual, they would burn all the limbs of the bull
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and, mixing his blood in a mixing-bowl, they would pour a clot of his blood over the head of each of them, and, once they had scrubbed the stele clean, they would bring the remaining blood over to the fire.

After this, they would draw the blood from the mixing-bowl into gold pouring vessels. Pouring the blood over the fire they would take an oath to render justice according to the laws inscribed on the stele and to punish anyone who had violated these laws since last they met. They swore that in the future they would not willingly violate any of the provisions of the inscription and that they would neither rule nor obey a ruler if either they or he did not issue commands that were in conformity with the laws of [b] their father. When each of the kings had made this oath and engaged both himself and his descendants, they drank and dedicated their pouring-vessels in the sanctuary of the god. And, once they had finished with their dinner and everything else they had to do and night had fallen and the fire about the sacrificial offerings had subsided, they all put on a deep blue robe of the most splendid appearance and, sitting on the ground next to the embers of the sacrificial victim, at night, they put out the fire still flickering in the sanctuary and judged anyone accused of violating any of [c] their laws and were judged themselves. Once they had passed judgment, when day dawned, they recorded their judgments on a gold tablet which they dedicated as a memorial offering along with their robes.

There were many other particular laws concerning the prerogatives of each of the kings, but the most important of these were those forbidding them to bear arms against one another and commanding them to help one another should anyone in any of their cities make an attempt to overturn the divine family; that they should deliberate together, as had their [d] ancestors before them, over their decisions concerning war and their other actions, but that they should cede leadership to the royal family of Atlantis; and, finally, that the king should have power to put none of his kinsmen to death, if he could not obtain the approval of the majority of the ten kings.

Now, this was the power, so great and so extraordinary, that existed in that distant region at that time. This was the power the god mustered and brought against these [Mediterranean] lands. It was said that his pretense [e] was something like what I shall describe. For many generations and as long as enough of their divine nature survived, they were obedient unto their laws and they were well disposed to the divinity they were kin to. They possessed conceptions that were true and entirely lofty. And in their attitude to the disasters and chance events that constantly befall men and in their relations with one another they exhibited a combination of mildness and prudence, because, except for virtue, they held all else in disdain and thought of their present good fortune of no consequence. They bore their vast wealth of gold and other possessions without difficulty, treating them
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as if they were a burden. They did not become intoxicated with the luxury of the life their wealth made possible; they did not lose their self-control and slip into decline, but in their sober judgment they could see distinctly that even their very wealth increased with their amity and its companion, virtue. But they saw that both wealth and concord decline as possessions become pursued and honored. And virtue perishes with them as well.

Now, because these were their thoughts and because of the divine nature that survived in them, they prospered greatly as we have already related. But when the divine portion in them began to grow faint as it was often [b] blended with great quantities of mortality and as their human nature gradually gained ascendancy, at that moment, in their inability to bear their great good fortune, they became disordered. To whoever had eyes to see they appeared hideous, since they were losing the finest of what were once their most treasured possessions. But to those who were blind to the true way of life oriented to happiness it was at this time that they gave the semblance of being supremely beauteous and blessed. Yet inwardly they were filled with an unjust lust for possessions and power. But as Zeus, god of the gods, reigning as king according to law, could clearly see this state of affairs, he observed this noble race lying in this [c] abject state and resolved to punish them and to make them more careful and harmonious as a result of their chastisement. To this end he called all the gods to their most honored abode, which stands at the middle of the universe and looks down upon all that has a share in generation. And when he had gathered them together, he said …

1
. Apollo, the Healer.

2
. The mother of the nine Muses and the goddess of memory.

3
. The Straits of Gibraltar.

4
. See
Timaeus
24e–25d.

5
. For Critias’ contemporaries Asia was defined by the Nile and the Hellespont, and Libya enclosed the entire coast of Saharan Africa west of the Nile. Thus, with Europe, these were the other two parts of the known world.

6
.
Timaeus
22d ff.

7
. Mythical figures in the early history of Athens and Attica, the first three as kings.

8
. There is a lacuna of a few words here in the mss.

9
. There are three units of measure in Critias’ description of the island: the foot, the
plethron
(100 feet), and the stade (600 feet).