Plato's Atlantis Myth_ Timaeus or Critias

8/2/2019 Plato's Atlantis Myth_ Timaeus or Critias

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PLATO'S - \ T L : \ ~ T l S MYTH: TIMAEUS OR CRITIAS?T. G. ROSENMEYER

10: recent attempts to date the Timaeus, comparatively little attention~ a s been paid to its companion piece, the Cri/ias. l The usual procedureto study the Timauu intensively, and to look at th e Critias in passing,

e l t h e ~ to verify certain conclusions formed concerning the Timaeus, orto .P?lnt to it as the unexpected vehicle of an even more surprisingpolitIcal novella, the Atlantis myth . This perfunctory treatment of theCritias, which will be found to prevail in practically all general works onPlato, is connected with the assumption, tacit and therefore, I believe,unchallenged, that the Cri/ias was written after the completion of theTimaeus. And indeed, it is a most natural assumption. In th e Theaeletus,~ o P h i s t , and PoN/ieus we have a trilogy which apparently was plannedIn the order in which we print th e dialogues today; just so the Timaeus,Cri/ias, and a supposedly planned Hermocrates must have formed another trilogy. The guess appears to become a virtual certainty when welook at the introductory section of the Crttias which clearly alludes tothe Timaeus as the dialogue which preceded it.And yet, once we look a little more carefully at that introductorysection, we find a detail that will disturb us. Timaeus ends his speech(106a) which, he says, dealt with the god who has long existed, i.e., thecosmos, the universe, the object of natural science and metaphysics.Now Critias takes over' and the first thing he says is that it is more. 'dIfficult to talk about men than about gods, an d that therefore he mustask his audience for more tolerance and forbearance than had beenrequired in the case of Timaeus. Here is the gist of his words: "It iseasier to talk about the gods than about men. We are satisfied with anapproximate portrayal of the earth and mountains and rivers and w o o ~ s and the whole ouranos and the things which are and circulate around It.But jf someone tries to portray our own bodies, then we sharply criticizeomissions and mistakes in the picture" (107a 7-d 5) . .The obvious implication of this passage is that human bodIes, andmen in general, have not been described in t?e Timams . But equallyobviously, that just is not so ; as much as a thIrd of the Ttmaeus as we'Two radical attacks on th e problem may be singled out fOT special mention: J.Zuercher, "Ueber die Abfassungszeit des TimaioJ und PIti/


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164 THE PHOENIXhave it today is taken up with a discussion of animal life and man(69c ff.), and man not only as a bundle of mat ter but also as a moralbeing (e.g., 89d ff; also 41d ff.). Some of Plato 's most t renchant observations on the subject of voils, ",vXq, and moral ltvlt'YK'l are, after all, tobe found in this dialogue. I t might be argued tha t even the section onhuman and animal life is essentially a t rea tment of the "god who haslong existed," inasmuch as man is here seen not in an ephemeral socialcondition but as a last ing component of the cosmic system. ' Still, it ishardly likely tha t Critias would have made his remark about the comparative difficulty of discussing gods and men, if the Timaeus had thenalready been designed to contain its present chapters on man as a physicaland non-physical being. Let us, then, propose the following hypothesis:at the time when the introductory section of the Critias was written, theTimaeus, if indeed i t had gone beyond the planning stage, did not as yetcontain a discussion of man; i.e., the Timaeus was planned as a theogonyin the true sense of the word.3With this hypothesis in mind, we m ay now perhaps approach a secondquestion. \Vhy are there two versions of the Atlantis myth, one at thebeginning of the Timaeus (20d-26d), the other constituting the bulkof the fragmentary Critias? Let us look at the two versions in detail,beginning with the version in the Timaeus. First (20d ff.) CritiaS re capitulates the traditio of the tale: how Solon received i t from theEgyptian priest, how the Egyptian priest had compared the institutionsof his own country with those of an alleged aboriginal or Ur_Athens, an.dhow the tale had come down to Critias through the generations of hISfamily. W e should note tha t the nature of the A thenian institutions isnot detailed, but merely inferred from the nature of the Egyptian institutions, which are themselves only briefly summarized. On the othehand, there is a wealth of detail about things which are of no importancfor the Atlantis myth itself, about the succession of civilizations, andcyclical catastrophes, and Solon's status as a poet, and the snobbishnesof the Egyptians.In the next section (24d ff.), we hear about the greatest deed of thUr-Athenians, their repelling of the Atlantians. But again, no detail

C/. the ambiguous formulation (exclusive or inclusiv e /) 'TEAEV'TaV l ) ~ .ls a.v(JpW1rWq,uaw, Tim. 27a, and I l ~ X P ' 'YEVEUfWS a.v(Jpw.,..LVT/< 90e. "Talk of onginal an d revised versions is out of f:.shion today, and has been for som

t1me. C/. the scathing remarks of rut ter , in Bursian 157 (1912) 60: . '... die suesseTraeumereien .. . die revidierte Neuauflagen einer ganzen Reihe p\atonischer Schriftezum G ~ ~ e n s t a n d haben." Nevertheless, the peculiar condition in which the Timaeuand Cnftas.have been handed down, makes i t probable that the Tima


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PLATO'S ATL.-\:-:TIS MYTH 165about the :\ .thenians or about the Atlantians' all we find outhi' 'ut t e at te r 1$ tha t they had a great empire, and that they were the\\ 'e also learn that the Athenians liberated all within the

I ars of Hercules, and tha t afterwards there was a deluge which causedantis to be submerged and Athens to be swallowed by an earthquake.~ g ~ i n . we get the impression that we are listening to an abstract,

p r e h ~ t n a r y summary or list of contents. embellished as Plato likes tohis introductions with seemingly irrelevant pleasantry andThis impression is confirmed in what follows (25e ff.).- .ntlas gives his reasons why he had not told the story before, and ex-

his willingness to tell i t all. In other words, this is a preface,leanness is relieved only by the apparent humour with which

dwells on the t ruth of the tale his Critias is about to tell. In fact,.is so much harping on the word truth, and the c o r n p l i c a ~ o n s of thethat the reader is soon convinced of the fact that he IS about toto a pseudO$" and he is willing to suspend his disbelief. Socrates

is; in fac; he declares that such a story is ideally suited to theof the goddess whom they are celebrating today-. he ~ a n -point of fact; but surely in our i m a g i n a t i ~ n thIS festIvalwith that on which Critias heard the tale from hIS grand:atheriApatouria; and tha t is , to use a popular etymology, t h ~ Festival?' . h settlmg down Incepuon. However that may be, Just w en we are ., 1h' . ' dos Crltlas sudden yr cus IOns In preparation for a gennaton p s e u , h Ik. ' d d oses that e taCuses hlmsel( pushes Timaeus for war , a n prop d . 'i ' . of ba tImIngst (27a 2). One wonders whether there IS a worse casethe whole of Greek literature. n the com-Now to the Cr;/;as. After the introductory c o m m e ~ t s 0 vchange. h I gy and alter anof theology and ant ropO 0 . I C" startsh H 1 b k direct 1, rltlasermocrates to which we shal , come ac II h t nine thousand

"Le t me begin by observlOg first of a , t a h' h was saidd ' the war w ICthe sum of years which had elapse slncel t 'de the pillars ofh h ho dwe t au 51 ave taken place between t ose W . I m noW gOIng toand all who dwelt within them. T;IS . ~ ~ r w i n ~ eleven lines of1-4) This sentence, and t e h 0..,.. A1US They were . in t e t m ~ o depend for their effect on the versl:>:rable time after it, b ~ c a u s e after i t and perhaps some consld d fj the war was In the' , h ' h counte rom ' ffigure nine thousand, whlc IS ,ere U A h ns' an evident lapse 0d of r- t e . h' hcounted from the foun atlOn h rlier version w Ie we. b ck to t e ea h dIn addition to referrIng us a , . g the summary we af h ummarlzln bw have in the Timtleus, and ,urt er s (. details which had not eenthere the new section gIves us a. eWfi it s submersion formed a .. ' . h h t AtlantIS a ter. I her words,earlIer; suc as , tad f an allIance. not ,b h the lea er 0 cll lOtTO-d ank and tha t At ens was f, II and stately as su, . not as Uhave here a second introductIOn, .

Ii;


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166 THE PHOENIXductions in Plato usually are. but full enough to prevent the sequel fromcoming upon us too abruptly.

And yet, the abruptness is noticeable: "In the days of old, the godshad the whole earth distributed to them by allotment" (109b Iff).This, at long last. is the true beginning of the Atlantis myth. What follows is Platonic mythopoeia at its best. From the divine distribution ofland. and the participation in the process o f Athena and Hephaestus,we turn to a piece of geological archaeology, the lay-out and nature ofthe land of Attica, climaxing in a description of the topography of Athens.all in severely scientific terms, and of the distribution of classes in the city.The description of Atlantis follows, and i t is this which engages Plato 'spowers of imagination to their fullest. Poseidon creates the ten royalancestors of Atlantis, and arranges the island in concentric rings, two ofland and three of water. We hear of the richness of the soil, the technicalaccomplishments of the engineers, the extravagance of the buildings:baths, harbour installations, barracks. Then we are transported to thecentral plain outside the city, with its canals and its magnificent irrigationsystem. The soil makes the man; and so finally we hear of the militaryorganization of Atlantis, and its civil administration, with i ts kings, andthe royal conventions with bull-baiting, sacrifice. and prayer. This isUtopia, a maritime empire of vast dimensions ruled by a federation ofkings. Plato designs i t as a Utopia, to confront i t with a Utopia of quiteanother stripe: Ur-Athens, which in the end saved Europe and Africafrom the imperial yoke.

W e should note, however, tha t even for Plato, who lavishes suchbrilliant colours on the construction of this house of cards, the Utopiaremains unreal. The total impression is one of miniature life. Plato startswith the concentric rings which Poseidon arranges for the future habitation of the Atlantians. These rings are conceived on a minor scale, likethe breakwaters which shelter the harbour installations of the Piraeus, orlike the walls surrounding an Attic fort. But as the tale proceeds, therings seem to grow before our eyes until each ring, and each segment ofa ring, is crowded with plains and mountains and walls .and harbours, eachof them in turn quickened with tumult and activity. The mountainsteem with forests and villages and other agglomerations of life. Is Platoparodying the city builders of the school of Hippodamus? Is this a satyrplay to his Laws? Whatever the motivation of i t all, i t is clear that herewe have the real tale, to which the version in the Timaeus is merely anintroduction. In fact, we cannot avoid the conclusion tha t the twoversions belong together as introduction and main tale, and that the newshorter preface (Critias I08e-I09a) was put before the tale when thetwo w ~ r e separated and the introduction pu t into the Timaeus.~ g a m , therefore, we are tempted to conjecture that the Critias waswritten first, before the Timaeus; we now add the proposition tha t the


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167PLATO'S ATLANTIS MYTH

was mutilated in order to bring about the Timaeus in its presentThe muti lat ion was not, of course practised on a living body' for . . ' 'llas was unfinlshed when Plato turned to the Timaeus. At thef ,he f" ,men< whieh we hav . -and ,he


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168 THE PHOENIXmay provide himself with a fresh beginning, and not be compelled tosay the same things over again, let him understand tha t the indulgenceis already extended by anticipation to him." A little later Hermocrateshimself says a few words, and then Critias refers to him as "you who arestat ioned last and have another ahead of you" (J08a-c). Hermocratesalso was to talk about men. In fact, his speech m ay have been plannedas a continuation of Critias' speech, perhaps in the same dialogue.Socrates' somewhat awkward arrangement for the elimination of preliminaries reminds us of the equally mechanical disposition a t the beginning of the Theaetetus, that from now on the narrative " I said" and"he said" will be omitted. In any case, the incident seems to suggesttha t the speeches of Critias and Hermocrates were closely connected.One may speculate what the function of Hermocrates was to be. D idPlato mean him, the successful repeller of an imperialist invasion ofSicily, to tell us how the Athenians defended themselves against theinvading Atlant ians-a most ironical situation, which might well haveappealed to Plato? In that case Critias would have told only half themyth, and most probably Hermocrates would have taken over half waythrough the dialogue. O r was i t planned that Hermocrates was to speakafter the myth, and to lead a theoretical discussion of internationalrelations? Or was he to build a new city, along the lines of the Republicor the Laws, superior not only to Atlantis but even to Ur-Athens becausefortified against the decay which affected them?To me, this last suggestion is the most appealing, that Hermocrates,perhaps starting with the defence and ult imate disappearance of UrAthens, in turn was to build up a new city, a city destined to realize the"OtiS of the Timaeus on the social level, and make for a permanent sociallife; in other words, another Republic, or Magnesia. And here is the reasonwhy this seems likely. In the Critias, the belief is throughout thatTimaeus was the first speaker, that Critias is the second, and thatHermocrates will be the third. There is, in the Critias, no reference to anearlier meeting at which Socrates himself had been the speaker. In theTimaeus as we have it today, there are three allusions to the fact thatHermocrates is a partner in the conversation, and once he even opens hismouth (20c 4), to prompt Critias to tell his tale, or rather what turnso ~ t t


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PLATO 'S ATLANTIS MYTH 169looked t J C .hat e rlltas, IS emphasized several times. I t now appears (17a 2)at all three had been with Socrates the day before and had heard himI ~ ~ U S S the best city. Tha t the discussion referred to'is not precisely that

Ich Plato published as the Republic, is obvious, if only from the factat the company was not the same. Instead of Adimantus and Glaucone have Timaeus and Critias and Hermocrates.6 But the recapitulation

of that discussion of the day before shows that the conversationhave had much in common with that of the Republic, for it stressesfacts, such as the sharing of wives, and the nuptial number, and

e institution of the guards, which were then unmistakably linked withe Republic. T h a t only the more startling aspects of Plato's Utopia

be stressed in this resume is perhaps to be explained from histo announce publicly, in spite of mockery and parody, that he

no cause to change his mind on these more extravagant issues. Thisof course, mere speculation. Much more important, Plato uses theew feature, the fiction that a Utopia had been discussed the day before,motivate the introduction and summary of the Atlantis myth whiche had now taken over into the Timaeus. This is what Socrates has to sayth reference to the previous day's talk: " I should like, before proceedingto tell you how I feel about the state which we have described.

might compare myself to a person who, on beholding beautiful anima!screated by the painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, ISwith a desire to see them in.motion or engaged in some struggle orto which their forms appear suited. This is my f e e l i ~ g about. t.he

which we have been describing. There are conflicts w h ~ c h all c l ~ , e s and I should like to hear someone tell of our own c l ~ y c a r ~ y J n g a struggle against her neighbours . . " (19b--c). By t.hls unhkelyof Socrates expressing a wish to become Py.gmaho?, and seee eternal form of the state subjected to degenerative actIOn, P l a ~ o

the presence of the part of the Atlantis myth which we find Ine Timaeus. Plato had not managed to finish the Critias; the plannedif it was ever planned as a separate dialogue, naturally { ~ I I the wayside too and so Plato had to find another place for the dlsd-. . '.' .. II H ocrates' preserve' anof the Ideal city whIch was ongma Y erm . (did make room for it by placing it first, and creatmg a sort 0trilogy. . ive'Now the Timaeus and Critias must be seen In a new perspect . of forminoo the opening and middle portions of a t r i l l ~ g y m O ~ J n g t '" b . aI' d 0 vmg agalOsits final climax, the two were to e v ~ s u Ize las edv k place. . . . h ch had a rea Y ta en . ,ImagIned background of a dISCUSSIon W I . I the casewould of course be unparalleled in the Platonrc corpus. n

.. ' hom Socrates reports his conversationT o argue that the anonymous audIence to w ( th T;mluus or that Plato later

etC. may have bee? th e i n t e r l o c ~ t o r s 0 !; srems me mistaken.the anonymity of that audIence (or suc a purpo , ,

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17 0 THE PHOENI Xof the hypothetical dialogue Philosopher, we would have the reversesituation, if that dialogue was, as some scholars believe, never meant tobe written, but merely to be divined as the ul t imate fruit of the study ofTheaetelus-Sophist-Politicus. Tha t sor t of imagined telos makes sense.But what can possibly be the purpose of a trilogy which star ts with animagined first movement? Does Plato mean to suggest that the kind ofexposition which Socrates had given in the Republic required the kind ofcomplementary tales that are told by Timaeus and Critias? In what sensedo the three form a whole? What is the dynamic curve of such a constellation ?7

These and similar questions need merely to be asked to show theinadequacy of the scheme as it has come down to us. The whole trouble,we are now prepared to believe, was apparently caused by the droppingof the contemplated Hermocrate.t, and by the t ransfer of the introductionof the Atlantis myth from the Critias to the Timaeus. I t is this last pointwhich constitutes the crucial problem: what may have been Plato'spurpose in publishing a Timaeus which at its beginning is disfigured bya patently irrelevant fraction of the Atlantis story? "Irrelevant" digressions, and seemingly trivial intrusions, are of course among the mostimportant devices of Plato 's literary art . The digression in theTheaetetus,on the philosopher and the politician, which to many generations ofscholars seemed to have a merely adventitious function in the dialogue,can now be recognized as a most meaningful, and even indispensable partof the discussion. In purely empirical, not to say humdrum terms, itallows us a glimpse into the higher conflict which will eventually setaside the sensationalist pretensions. Could the same be t rue of theAtlantis summary in the Timaeus? Does it afford us a non-dialecticalglimpse of what , if treated philosophically, might have been the climaxof the dialogue? For i t deals with the social prospect of man, as againstthe physical and intellectual condition of m an which is approacheddirectly, and scientifically, in the body of the treatise. Those scholars,therefore, who feel that all Platonic thought has at its apex social philosophy, may argue that the most vital issues in the Timaeus are touchedupon in the Atlantis summary rather than in the speech of Timaeus;hence we would have to count it as a parallel to the digression of theTheaetetus, less subtle perhaps, bu t functional nonetheless.

The position of the Atlantis summary may puzzle us. The only otherdialogueS which gives us a myth so near the beginning of the discussion

'Against Owen (p. 90), therefore, I hold with Corn ford that Plato star tedwriting the Timaeus and Critias without thinking of the Republic. Against Corn ford, Ido not feel that the finished product is completely independent of the Republic.~ T . h e Pa/iJicus myth does not come quite so early, particularly if we consider that its

posltlOn should be calculated within the whole tri logy as much as within the Politicusitself. -


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PLATO'S ATLANTIS MYTH 171

is the Pro/,!goras, and it may be significant that in both cases, in[rmaeus and the Pro/agoras, the myth is told by a sophist and notocrates. B ut It should be obvious by now that the myth was no t

to s tand a t the beginning, but that it was meant to follow afterconclusion of Timaeus' speech. The trilogy of Timaeus-Critiaswhether designed as two or as three dialogues had been

d d' h' 'lve as a Ip tyC, to unfold against the central myth of the Critias.structurally, the Atlantis myth was analogous to the Simonidesof the Pro/agoras rather than to the Prometheus myth. In thatand with the fulness to which even our fragment testifies the. 'antis myth would have allowed us to progress from the eternity ofcosmic structure, via the cataclysmic vision of the ancient war, toexigencies of the political debate. In that position, the Atlantis mythhave warned us that it is action which counts, and that the science

the Timaeus has a merely propaideutic purpose. But now we find theof the Atlantis tale in the Timaeus, a myth within a scientifica digression at the very start of a discussion on which it seems tobearing; in this new position, do we find the Atlantis tale equallyFor one thing, the summary is so scanty that without aof the Critias we would not know what Plato really had in mind.

one m ay suspect that when he put the summary into the TimaeuSmind was filled with the detail which he had conceived for the Critias,d he failed to see that by itself the summary would not convey much,Still , the crucial question remains. '"vhy did Plato transfer the intro-

from the Critias to the Timaeus? Had anything happened toe Timaeus which demanded this change of plans? And here we comeour earlier difficulty: the presence of a section on man in theApparently, when Plato was writing the Timaeus.. he came too

tha t the scientifiC perspective which he had chosen did n?t permitm to separate the theological from the a n t h r o p o l o g i c ~ l material, as hed intended. The result was a treatise which starts With the gods andwith man. This was perhaps unavoidable, in view of the c ~ o s e Con-between the human and the cosmic as it meets us, for tnsta.nce,the Symposium. But it did upset the original plan; at the same t1m.c'

was the danger that readers would view the p a s s a g ~ s on m ~ n . 'h " b ' ub speCIe (JeurnlfatJl.e same light as the section on t e IVlne elng. s fPI ' d th summary 0may be proposed therefore, that atO Inserte e h h' has a hint to his readers that man is not to be placed on t arblg

1, 'b ' d at least has been so su 1ec tateau ' that hiS nature IS su "ect to ecay. or A I '' , I d Th then the t anUSthe history of WhiCh we have knoW e ge, us , , hthe Tim4eus should be explained with refer.ence to t ~ e a ~ t h

ro:

d f hd' I gu In thiS connelCtOn, It a

increment at the en 0 tela 0 e: ' f I ' it s new' f ' "'''hether It IS success u Inwarning or deprecating unction. " . ' . d ' tb ' n d ' It IS tOO cursory, an Iits new role may ' e questtO e ,

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17 2 THE PHOENIXcomes too early, to function properly, and in any case most of us willfeel that the Timaeus is after all ITlainly concerned with the gods, thecosmos, and only secondarily with man, and tha t therefore the digressiononly falsifies the perspective. I t seems irrelevant, and ill-timed, unlessindeed i t is merely an advert isement of the fact tha t the Critias willfollow later. This possibility we may, I think, reject ou t o f hand.

I realize there is too much hypothesis in what I have suggested.There must be better, and even simpler, explaaations of the difficultieswhich we have noted. B ut these difficulties exist, and they ITlust be facedin some way or other. I t is remarkable how rarely scholars have askedthemselves what effect the abandonment of the Critias m ay have had onits companion piece, the Timaeus. 9 B ut is i t not likely tha t the relinquishing of the Crilias would leave some scars also on the Timaeus?W hy the Critias was left incomplete would be futile to ask. I have tried toindicate tha t some of the discrepancies between the two dialogues, andsome of the internal features of the Timaeus, m ay be understood asresulting from the abandonment of the Critias, and the remodellingof the Timaeus, so as to include m an within the area to be discussed. tO

Wilamowitz (Platon, vol. I , 591ft; vol. 2, 255ff.) clearly saw some of the puzzles in'the structure of the Timaeus, but did not proceed to venture an explanation.

101 believe that i t is possible to demonstrate tha t the Critias is one: of Plato 's last works.Terminology, affinities with what P. Clochl; h as identified as Isocrates ' fourth period ,o fpolitical thought (LEC 1936, 394ff.), and a certain archaic stiffness comparable to tha tof the Phi/thus, suggest a late date. If o, the consequences for the Timatus are obvious.

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Plato's Atlantis Myth_ Timaeus or Critias