Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river
Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is
the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their
foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted
by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers
of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To
this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked
the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and
made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything
worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw
them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient
things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first
man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning
up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he
was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very
great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children,
and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he
meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there
is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science
which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and
will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes;
the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water,
and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which
even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios,
having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able
to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the
earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form
of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the
heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the
earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live
upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction
than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity
the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water,
the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the
mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers
into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time,
does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency
to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are
the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes
in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours,
or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions
noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written
down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when
you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the
other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those
of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin
all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient
times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of
yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than
the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge
only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not
know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race
of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended
from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown
to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction
died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the
great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war
and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed
the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which
tradition tells, under the face of heaven.
Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests
to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are
welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake
and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who
is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded
your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus
the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution
is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As
touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform
you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars
of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred
registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will
find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the
olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is
separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply
their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there
is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen;
and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from
all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves
solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are
shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics
first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom,
do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole
order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health,
out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life,
and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order
and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your
city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she
saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce
the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and
of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most
likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such
laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue,
as became the children and disciples of the gods.
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our
histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour.
For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition
against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end.
This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the
Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the
straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was
larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands,
and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which
surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of
Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is
a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless
continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful
empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over
parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected
the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and
of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured
to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within
the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence
of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage
and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest
fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone
the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders,
and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously
liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards
there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and
night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth,
and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of
the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,
because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the
subsidence of the island.
Plato's Timaeus