Editing Atlantis (section)

===Ancient===

Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical myth; others believed it to be real.<ref>[[Heinz-Günther Nesselrath|Nesselrath, HG]] (2005). 'Where the Lord of the Sea Grants Passage to Sailors through the Deep-blue Mere no More: The Greeks and the Western Seas', ''Greece & Rome'', vol. 52, pp.&nbsp;153–171 [pp. 161–171].</ref> [[Aristotle]] believed that Plato, his teacher, had invented the island to teach philosophy.{{r|ley196706}} The philosopher [[Crantor]], a student of Plato's student [[Xenocrates]], is cited often as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on ''Timaeus'', is lost, but [[Proclus]], a [[Neoplatonist]] of the fifth century AD, reports on it.<ref>{{cite web |author=Plato |title=Timaeus |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0179%3Atext%3DTim.%3Asection%3D24a |access-date=25 August 2021 |website=Perseus Digital Library |at=Section 24a |language=grc |quote={{lang|grc|τὰ γράμματα λαβόντες}}}}</ref> The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story, or, as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.<ref>Cameron 1983, p. 83</ref> Proclus wrote:

{{blockquote|As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians this story about the Athenians and Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system.}}

The next sentence is often translated "Crantor adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved." But in the original, the sentence starts not with the name Crantor but with the ambiguous ''He''; whether this referred to Crantor or to Plato is the subject of considerable debate. Proponents of both Atlantis as a metaphorical myth and Atlantis as history have argued that the pronoun refers to Crantor.<ref>Castleden 2001, p. 168</ref>

Alan Cameron argues that the pronoun should be interpreted as referring to Plato, and that, when Proclus writes that "we must bear in mind concerning this whole feat of the Athenians, that it is neither a mere myth nor unadorned history, although some take it as history and others as myth", he is treating "Crantor's view as mere personal opinion, nothing more; in fact he first quotes and then dismisses it as representing one of the two unacceptable extremes".<ref name="Cameron 1983">{{cite journal |last=Cameron |first=Alan |title=Crantor and Posidonius on Atlantis |journal=The Classical Quarterly |series=New Series |volume=33 |issue=1 |year=1983 |pages=81–91 |doi=10.1017/S0009838800034315 |s2cid=170592886 }}</ref>

Cameron also points out that whether ''he'' refers to Plato or to Crantor, the statement does not support conclusions such as Otto Muck's "Crantor came to Sais and saw there in the temple of [[Neith]] the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis"<ref>Muck, Otto Heinrich, ''The Secret of Atlantis'', Translation by Fred Bradley of ''Alles über Atlantis'' (Econ Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf-Wien, 1976), Times Books, a division of Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., Inc., New York{{ISBN|978-0-671-82392-4}}</ref> or J. V. Luce's suggestion that Crantor sent "a special enquiry to Egypt" and that he may simply be referring to Plato's own claims.<ref name="Cameron 1983"/>

Another passage from the commentary by Proclus on the ''Timaeus'' gives a description of the geography of Atlantis: {{blockquote|That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to [[Persephone]], and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Hades, another to [[Amun|Ammon]], and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of which was a thousand stadia [200&nbsp;km; 124 mi]; and the inhabitants of it—they add—preserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to Poseidon. Now these things Marcellus has written in his ''Aethiopica''.<ref>[[Proclus]], ''Commentary on Plato's Timaeus'', pp. 117.10–30 (=''FGrHist'' 671 F 1), trans. Taylor, Nesselrath.</ref>|source=}}

Marcellus remains unidentified.

Other ancient historians and philosophers who believed in the existence of Atlantis were [[Strabo]] and [[Posidonius]].<ref>Strabo 2.3.6</ref> Some have theorized that, before the sixth century BC, the "Pillars of Hercules" may have applied to mountains on either side of the [[Gulf of Laconia]], and also may have been part of the pillar cult of the Aegean.<ref name="Davis, J.L 1990">Davis, J.L. and Cherry, J.F., (1990) "Spatial and temporal uniformitarianism in LCI: Perspectives from Kea and Melos on the prehistory of Akrotiri" in Hardy, D.A and Renfrew, A.C. (Eds)(1990) "Thera and the Aegean World III, Proceedings of the Third International Conference, Santorini, Greece, 3–9 September 1989" (Thera Foundation)</ref><ref name="Castleden, Rodney 1998 p6">Castleden, Rodney (1998), "Atlantis Destroyed" (Routledge), p6</ref> The mountains stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and it opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. This would have placed Atlantis in the Mediterranean, lending credence to many details in Plato's discussion.

The fourth-century historian [[Ammianus Marcellinus]], relying on a lost work by [[Timagenes]], a historian writing in the first century BC, writes that the [[Druids]] of [[Gaul]] said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands. Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's sinking into the sea, its inhabitants fled to western Europe; but Ammianus, in fact, says that "the Drasidae (Druids) recall that a part of the population is indigenous but others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the [[Rhine]]" (''Res Gestae'' 15.9), an indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north (Britain, the Netherlands, or Germany), not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to the south-west.<ref>Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Keith. ''[http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/cult_archaeology/lost_continents.html Lost Continents: Atlantis].''</ref> Instead, the Celts who dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods, ([[Dioscori]]), who appeared to them coming from that ocean.<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus|Siculus, Didorus]]. ''[[Bibliotheca historica]]''. [http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4A.html Section 4.56.4]: ''"And the writers even offer proofs of these things, pointing out that the Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate the Dioscori above any of the gods, since they have a tradition handed down from ancient times that these gods appeared among them coming from the ocean. Moreover, the country which skirts the ocean bears, they say, not a few names which are derived from the Argonauts and the Dioscori."''</ref>