moisture in the winter and by a system of aqueducts in the summer, its mineral wealth, its abundance in all species of useful animals; and the magnificent Works of art with which it was adorned, especially at the royal residences. We have also a full account of the people; their military order; their just and simple government, and the oaths by which they bound themselves to obey it; their laws, which enjoined abstinence from all attacks on one another, and submission to the supreme dynasty of the family of Atlas, with many other particulars. For many generations, then, as long as the divine nature of their founder retained its force among them, they continued in a state of unbounded prosperity, based on wisdom, virtue, temperance, and mutual regard; and, during this period, their power grew to the height previously related. But at length, the divine element in their nature was overpowered by continual admixture with the human, so that the human character prevailed in them over the divine; and thus becoming unfit to bear the prosperity they had reached, they sank into depravity: no longer understanding the true kind of life which gives happiness, they believed their glory and happiness to consist in cupidity and violence. Upon this, Jove, resolving to punish them, that they might be restored to order and moderation, summoned a council of the gods, and addressed them in words which are lost with the rest of this dialogue of Plato. The truth or falsehood, the origin and meaning, of this legend, have exercised the critical and speculative faculties of ancient and modern writers. That it was entirely an invention of Plato's, is hardly credible; for, even if his derivation of the legend from Egypt through Solon, and his own assertion that the story is "strange but altogether true" (Tim. p. 20, d.) be set down to his dramatic spirit, we have still the following indications of its antiquity. First, if we are to believe a Scholiast on Plato (Repub. p. 327), the victory of the Athenians over the Atlantines was represented on one of the pepli which were dedicated at the Panathenaea. Diodorus also refers to this war (iii. 53). Then, the legend is found in other forms, which do not seem to be entirely copied from Plato. Thus Aelian relates at length a very similar story, on the authority of Theopompus, who gave it as derived from a Phrygian source, in the form of a relation by the matyr Silenus to the Phrygian Midas; and Strabo just mentions, on the authority of Theopompus aad Apollodorus, the same legend, in which the island was called Meropis and the people Meropes (Μεροπίς, Μέροπες, the word used by Homer and Hesiod in the sense of endowed with the faculty of articulate speech: Aelian, V. H. iii. 18, comp. the Notes of Perizonius; Strab. vii. p. 399: comp. Tertull. de Pallio, 2.) Diodorus, also, alter relating the legend of the island in a form very similar to Plato's story, adds that it was discovered by some Phoenician navigators who, while sailing along the W. coast of Africa, were driven by violent winds across the Ocean. They brought back such an account of the beauty and resources of the island, that the Tyrrhenians, having obtained the mastery of the sea, planned an expedition to colonise the new land, but were hindered by the opposition of the Carthaginians. (Diod. v. 19, 20) Diodorus does not mention the name of the island; and he differs from Plato by referring to it as still existing. Pausanias relates that a Carian Euphemus had told him of a voyage |
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Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/333
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