The lost city of Atlantis: the ancient mythical civilization that sank beneath the waves and supposedly lies somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean waiting to be rediscovered.
If you’re like 57% percent of Americans, you may believe that lost civilizations like Atlantis exist. And that’s perhaps what makes the story of Atlantis so fascinating.
Appearing in two of Plato’s dialogues over 2,000 years ago, the story was almost certainly a fictional account meant to convey a message to Plato’s readers. Over time, the story of Atlantis became embedded in our collective imaginations.
Modern writers embellished the original story and came up with their theories about what happened to Atlantis’ inhabitants.
As captivating as the original story of Atlantis is, it’s the theories surrounding it that provide a truly rich history that’s well worth investigating.
The Origin Story of the Lost City
The origins of the myth of Atlantis extend far back into history.
The story goes that about 9,000 years before Plato, there was a civilization made up of half-human, half-god inhabitants. They lived on a series of islands somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
This great civilization was blessed with abundant natural resources, a powerful navy, and vast riches. No other civilization came close to matching the power of Atlantis. Spread out over an extensive formation of islands, the Atlanteans lived in a utopia.
Except for one thing. Its inhabitants, flush with power and riches, neglected to honor the gods. They became immoral, greedy, and vain. In their vanity and hubris, they decided to attack the cities of Europe and Asia.
They sent their armies to conquer the people of the Mediterranean region. But when they attacked Athens, the Atlanteans suddenly met their match. Athens, despite its comparatively small stature, repelled the Atlantean attack and subsequently freed the other peoples of Europe and North Africa.
To make matters worse, the Atlanteans’ insolence angered the gods. As punishment for having lost their way, the gods sent earthquakes and fires to destroy them.
In one terrible night and day, Atlantis sank beneath the water along with the heroic Athenian warriors who had battled them.
From that time on, it’s said that the area of the ocean where Atlantis once was remained impassable due to the subsidence of the Atlanteans’ fallen kingdom.
Other than some layers of rubble, the once-great civilization has been completely erased from existence.
On the face of it, this story seems steeped in myth. After all, a divine earthquake is a bit hard to swallow. But as history demonstrates, there have been numerous believers over the centuries.
How did Plato’s story become so believable?
Why Did Plato Invent Atlantis?
Plato wrote the story of Atlantis as a thought experiment. Plato was not a historian, so he was not describing actual events.
Instead, he was describing a fictional exchange in which Socrates asks those around him to come up with a city-state that could be used as a measuring stick against Athens. He mentions that he’d like to imagine his city, “contending against others in typical inter-city contests.”
In these dialogues between Socrates and his followers, three fictional city-states are presented, each of which can be compared to the Athens of Plato’s time. One of these city-states is Atlantis.
How do we know that the story of Atlantis isn’t real? A big giveaway is the fact that the person telling the story, a man named Critias, was describing something that happened over nine thousand years earlier. That is, thousands of years before Athens ever existed.
Like a game of telephone, Plato was writing about a man named Critias who heard the story from a Greek named Solon who, in turn, heard the story while in Egypt.
But if Plato’s Atlantis isn’t real, why would he include this story in his dialogues?
The answer is that he was trying to use the allegory of Atlantis as a warning to Athenians about the risks they run when hubris takes over. Plato wasn’t explaining a long-forgotten historical event. He was using a fictionalized civilization as an example of how not to act as a nation.
Most Greeks at the time of Plato would have readily recognized that he was merely using Socrates and Critias as interlocutors to convey a message.
But modern readers looked right past Plato’s true intention. They decided that the story was too good to leave as a philosophical experiment. Eventually, Plato’s brief mention of a fictional civilization turned into a genuine historical mystery.
