11,500 years ago... Atlantis in the Platonic myth
The fame of the mythical continent of Atlantis comes from two dialogues by Plato: Timaeus and Critias. In these texts, the Greek philosopher (Timaeus, 24e-25abcd; Critias, 108e-109a) first briefly and succinctly, and then in more detail in Critias, recounts what he knows about Atlantis from tradition and sources. The narrative seems as evanescent as the ghost of something that no longer exists, but only seemingly so; upon closer examination, there are elements that undoubtedly help us say something more about this vexed question.
For centuries, commentators have taken for granted that beyond the Pillars of Hercules meant beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. However, after carefully rereading Plato, we are certain that the situation is different; and we will clarify why.
Let us start with Critias.
It refers to an era 9,000 years before the author's time, saying: "The island of Atlantis, which, as we said, was at that time larger than Libya and Asia combined, is now submerged by earthquakes and has become an impassable mud that hinders the passage of those who sail from here to the open sea, so that the journey does not go beyond."
It is interesting first to note the philosopher's premise; he says "at that time" (pote pote) almost anticipating a judgment of visibility that then becomes evident later on. But this is not the most interesting point. There is also the word meizo (meizō) which does not necessarily mean larger but simply more powerful; this is also evident from what he says in Timaeus when he states that this power invaded all of Europe and Asia. On the other hand, the Greek word megas (mega) can be traced back to the Sanskrit root mag/meg, which also derives machomai (to fight), and this, in turn, is connected to men+ago (men + agō) which clarifies, if there was ever a need, that fighting is a typical and honorable activity of man. Alexander was called "the Great" not for his stature, obviously, but for the great deeds he managed to accomplish. Therefore, the image of an island that appeared huge to all and that sparked the most fanciful hypotheses over time must be resized (indeed, it is enough to analyze the dimensions that Plato himself provides of the island). There is then a noteworthy fact: "now, submerged by earthquakes, it is an impassable mud." Already in Plato's times, it was still possible to discern traces of what had happened and what remained of that island.
This is important, and the philosopher's language faithfully reflects, reconstructs, testifies, and describes accurately, if not the exact location that we modern lazy readers make of ancient texts, at least its placement in the Mediterranean basin, over that great swamp upon which so many peoples appear like frogs.
Plato precisely says: "which impedes the passage to those who sail from here to the open sea (epi to pan pelagos - epi to pan pelagos): it would be better to render even the pan (pan) as 'in every direction'."
It is important to note here that to indicate the sea, Plato uses, in the passages mentioned, three terms that are only apparently similar: one generic, thalatta (thalatta); then pelagos (pelagos) to indicate the open sea; finally pontos (pontos) to designate a bounded sea suitable for coastal sailing. And not by chance the first term, primordial, is feminine and indicative of the maternal and uterine mood; the last masculine in correspondence with the action of the Greek sailors and others who dared to challenge the waters and the unknowns of new voyages; the second is neutral because it is and represents the sign of divinity and the inscrutable mystery beyond the visible horizon. Well, in the passage in question, Plato speaks of the open sea, a sign that he wants to compare the inner sea, e.g., the Aegean or other inner seas, from which it was possible with coastal navigation to reach every island and nearby land with another sea, much vaster and open, without immediate visible references, which some naively today assign the name "ocean."
It must be stated immediately, to avoid misunderstanding, that the term "ocean" is entirely our own, and it would be wrong to read the past in light of our current knowledge and symbolic parameters.
Similarly, trying to determine which could then be considered pontos and which the open sea, we will shed light on another fundamental problem: the designation of the Pillars of Hercules.
To return for a moment to what we just said, regarding the term "ocean," translating Timaeus, some (let us here recall the translated text by Enrico V. Maltese) explicitly say proceeding from outside the Atlantic Ocean (pelagous - pelagous)... Obviously, they are mistaken. But let us now make a small jump before returning to our immediate issue.
When we read, in my time, Homer's Odyssey, our teacher, a Sicilian, kept emphasizing that in speaking of Thrinacia the Poet obviously alluded to Sicily. Even in that case, nothing could be more mistaken. Or rather, the stratification of names in the Homeric poems was not considered; and if this was evident for the Iliad (also for other structural reasons), it was also valid for the other of the two poems: thus, Luigi Pareti (in Ancient Sicily) could later clarify that by Thrinacia was meant the Thracian Chersonese. And he was right, as for the sailors of that time, it indeed appeared from the sea as a promontory with three points, while for Sicily, in the absence of nautical charts, this seems highly unlikely; and then because the first stations of the wandering Odysseus had to be sought in that inner sea, and only later beyond.
In this regard, it is useful to note that just as the Trojan War poetically documents the frontal and periodic clash between two cultures and the attempt by the Hellenes to expand eastward, in the same manner the voyage, or return, of the Ulysses is nothing but the chronicle of the pre-Greek and then Greek expansion of the Hellenes, first eastward and then, and more significantly, westward; not by chance have traces of their passage been found in all the points touched by this ancient and "tormented" people.
Now, also for the Pillars of Hercules, we believe it is time to begin to clarify. Let us first look at the submarine level of the Mediterranean, and try with isobaths to outline a fairly evident profile. When I was a graduate student in Messina, in my old thesis on the Arvali (later acquired by the Proceedings of the Accademia dei Lincei), I tried to map what presumably existed between Greece and Turkey at the end of the Würm glaciation. This was then based on the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha; but it was quite interesting because it turned out that all those that now appear as islands were then just the peaks of a huge island between the two lands. Today, I find consolation in reading, in the latest book by Castellani, that the scholar reaches the same conclusion: he too from the analysis of isobaths, as I had done then (cf. p. 51 - Figs. 1 and 2).
Now, if one analyzes the seabeds of the Mediterranean (despite what the currents have done in this time span), one can discern things of certain interest.
At that time, during the last Würm glaciation, the level of the Mediterranean presumably dropped at least 100 meters, or perhaps even 200; this must have been sufficient to redesign the coastline. In some areas, this did not result in particularly significant events, but in others, it modified the coasts and brought some lands closer together. This must have been quite significant in the middle part of our sea, so much so that Sicily and Calabria (the current Calabria, obviously) became very close, and the same happened on the southern coast of the island.
Now of the neck of the funnel, so to speak, quite narrow between Scylla and Charybdis, we also have testimony in the Homeric poems: the two monsters manage to swallow Ulysses' companions and destroy their ships due to the motion of ebb and flow of the two seas (Ionian and Tyrrhenian), whose level must also have necessarily been different. This also happened for another reason, and it is right that it be underlined here. As far as we know, the island moves away from Italy at a rate of about 4 cm. a year. If to what we said above we also add this element (and it is easy to multiply 4 by about 3 millennia: one obtains a figure of 120 meters), then things begin to appear differently. One could object that 120 meters in the end are little; but we have meanwhile taken into account the current motion of the tectonic plate, and it cannot be ruled out that in the past such motion was faster; but, anyway, those 120 meters added to the lowering of the water level must have been quite decisive and significant. The Strait, then, was much more "narrow" and dangerous for navigators. Hence the myth of Scylla and Charybdis.
Now, to return to our assumption, on the southern part of the island a lowering of the sea level could have brought to light a vast shallows such that it united Sicily to Malta and the approaching of the coastline almost to Tunisia, leaving just a space of just about twenty kilometers or a little more. That the seabeds there are lower and sandy is proven by direct observation. Even today, despite the action and erosion of the currents, those approaching the airport of Tunis can see from above a vast area of shallows and very low seabeds that characterize such an ancient continental shelf. But on this, we will return later.
Let's continue to analyze the Platonic text.
Thus, proceeding from outside the 'Atlantic' pelagos, Atlantis invaded all of Europe and Asia.
Then indeed that sea was navigable (a sign, this, that in the times of Plato - or of those who told him the story - it was no longer so), and in front of that entrance... Here it is finally! Right in front of that entrance (the presumed Pillars of Hercules) there was the island of Atlantis. And from there it was possible to reach the other islands... and from the islands to the entire opposite continent that was around that true sea (peri ton alithenon ekeinon ponton - peri ton alithenon ekeinon ponton).
Here is the first distinctive indication. It refers to an inner sea, but due to its depth and danger, it appears to the philosopher, and to the people of the time, as a true sea. And here was Atlantis. It is the first sufficiently detailed indication.
But in front of that entrance means "on this side" or "beyond" that entrance?
The only possibility we have, in light of the philosopher's indications, is that the Pillars of Hercules were nothing other than the narrow stretch of sea between the southeastern coast of Sicily and that of Tunisia. Just about twenty km; or perhaps less.
Spiridon Marinatos liked to believe that Atlantis was Santorini. But this is not attested by Plato, as he later tells us that the kings of the island ruled the regions of Libya that are on this side of the strait up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia; a sign that such a strait had to be located near Libya, in its central part; and then it would have been exceedingly strange for people who were on a territory adjacent to Hellas to fight the peoples of Hellas.
This is the most significant passage of the whole description. But we will return to this.
Indeed - he continues - everything that is included within the limits of the entrance I spoke of appears like a harbor characterized by a narrow entrance. This detail is also noteworthy: it is not just a 'passage', a strait, or, as everyone would like, today's Strait of Gibraltar, because within it appears as a harbor (limen - limhn) characterized by a narrow entrance. Then he continues: that other sea, instead, you can actually call a sea and that land that entirely surrounds it you can really and justly call a continent.
Here already begins to appear the actual localization, if not of Atlantis, at least of the strait in question and of the lands that surround it. The allusion is clear: it refers to the area, indicated by map 2, that lies between Sicily and Tunisia. We have a strait, and we have a natural harbor; therefore, a sea that, even if internal, is a true sea and a land that entirely surrounds it and that can be defined as a continent. Indeed, the Pillars of Hercules are not the closest point between Sicily and Tunisia but rather a narrow gut that had to be there at the height of the island of Malta and that enclosed, together with the other, that natural harbor of which the philosopher speaks.
But he does not stop here.
In this island of Atlantis... a royal dynasty that dominated the whole island and many other islands and parts of the continent: moreover, they governed the regions of Libya that are on this side of the strait up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia... (pros de toutois eti ton entos tede Libues men erchon mechri pros Aigupton, tes de Europes mechri Turrenias - pros de toutois eti twn entos thde Libues men hrcon mecri pros Aigupton, ths de Europes mecri Turrhnias).
It turns out that, from the physical point of view of a Greek living in the heart of Hellas, there exists a strait beyond which is Atlantis and that this dominated... the regions of Libya that are on this side of such strait; therefore, ancient Libya, or North Africa, extended beyond and on this side of such strait. Indeed, it seems obvious that, if the Pillars of Hercules are intended for the current Gibraltar, to say the regions of Libya that are on this side etc... would have been tautological, excessive, superfluous, unnecessary, and redundant; because they are actually on this side of Gibraltar; nor can it be affirmed that Plato intended to allude to that part of today's Morocco that is beyond Gibraltar, since the description is well geographically delimited: "on this side of the strait up to Egypt." And then it is as if he had said: "in the central part up to Egypt." Moreover, if Atlantis was as powerful as the philosopher rightly says and since it was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, why should it have extended its domination only on this side and not also "beyond"?
It is because he wants to highlight the quadrants over which such domination extended: from Tunisia to Egypt, and from the Phoenician Europe up to Tyrrhenia; i.e., that Atlantis had its sphere of influence on the current eastern Maghreb (obviously to dominate the commercial traffics that were very flourishing there) and then on the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and then up to the areas of Asia Minor that had not yet been colonized by the Hellenes. These were then relegated to the north of Crete, in the Aegean, and from there up to the Hellespont.
But let's return to Critias.
Here (108e) we read: "It was 9,000 years ago, as it is said, that the war broke out between the peoples who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules and all those who lived on this side; and this war must now be fully described.
It should be emphasized here, the all those who live on this side (tois entos pasin - toiV entoV pasin) of the text. Here the Author meanwhile wants to highlight how there had been a huge coalition of all the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, especially the Hellenes, to counter those who, led by the Atlantids, wanted to conquer also that part of the world then "visible."
As for the peoples who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules, it is absurd to think, believe, hypothesize that Plato wanted to allude... to whom?, perhaps to the Amerindians? Because he does not limit himself to saying "the Atlantids", but all the peoples etc. etc.; and then such a coalition against the Hellenes, led by the inhabitants of Atlantis, had to be formed perhaps by "Americans", Cubans, inhabitants of Vattelapesca and so on? Of course not!, and the matter seems to me all too evident to spend more time on it.
The description of the island we find later on (113c sqq.). We read that the central part of the island of Atlantis, where was the city of the greatest of the 10 kings, had a diameter of just 5 stadia, or just under 1000 meters (being the current stade of 177.60 meters); that around this city were made 5 defensive belts, three of water and two of land; that beyond such belt there was a plain that extended on both sides for 3000 stadia and for 2000 from the last belt to the sea; that there was an abundance of wildlife, and among the many animals even the elephant.
There is then another geographical reference: the most important part faced the open sea, while on the other side it looked towards the Gadiric region.
Here one must proceed with greater caution. Most understand, to support the hypothesis Pillars of Hercules = Gibraltar, "near Cadiz". The fact is that Plato simply says the brother (i.e., of Atlas) twin born after him, who had received in lot the end of the island towards the Pillars of Hercules, facing the region today called Gadiric (epi to tes Gadeirikes nun choras - epi to thV GadeirikhV nun cwraV) from the name of that locality, in Greek was Eumelo (Eumelon - Eumhlon), while in the language of the place Gadiro, the name that would have indeed provided the name to this region.
He does not say, in fact, near or even in the vicinity; he says only towards; which means only that it was facing that region which, for some reason, had to be well known; but this prescinds from the notion of proximity, obviously.
Interesting the Greek name of Gadiro which is, as seen, Eumelo. It (cf. melas, mhlaV but in Hom. - H104 - melopa, mhlopa "quince color"(1)) indicates how the Hellenes had named the brother of Atlas; moreover, if one analyzes the etymology of the name that apparently is not Greek, as Plato says, i.e., Gadiro (Gadeiron - Gadeiron), and therefore that of the Gadiric region, one realizes that it also recalls a Greek etymology: we have indeed a ga (ga - land) and a deiras / deire (deiraV / deirh - sscr. drsat) (neck, rock, yoke, chain, necklace).
The first voice is clearly Doric, and this says a lot about the antiquity of the term (elsewhere we have shown how the first descent of the Dorians should be placed around the 16th century BC)(2); the second recalls the probable configuration of the territory governed by such Gadiro: "A strip of land" or "a necklace of islands". This could be, this, a valid hypothesis, also in order to locate the exact point of Atlantis. Certainly not Cadiz.
There would then be, in analogy with the Greek name Eumelo, the possibility that Gadiro also wanted to mean "with a back the color of the earth". It is not the first time, in fact, that the etymology of a term is double, ambivalent; that it encompasses in itself, therefore, all the strange magic of the word.
In short, everything agrees to designate the area we indicated as the only possible one to identify the site of ancient Atlantis. That then the fantasy of men and writers made of such a land an arcane place of the spirit and the ultimate refuge of dreams, well, this is another matter that obviously escapes research and text analysis.
For us, what Plato himself tells us is enough. And it is not little.
Rosario Vieni
