|

Ausc. 136; Plat. Tim. p. 24, 25, comp. ATLANTIS; Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iv. 6. § 4; Scylax, p. 53; Suid. s. v. ǎ#λwra ñeλάyn, 'Atλavtika meλάyn; comp. Ideler, ad Aristot. Meteor. p. 504, and Humboldt, Krit. Untersuch. vol. ii. p. 67, foll., who explains the stories of the shallows and sea-weed as referring to the extraordinary phaenomena which the parts of the ocean near the coast would present at low water to voyagers previously unacquainted with its tides).

The most marked epochs in the subsequent history of discovery in the Atlantic are those of the voyage of Pytheas of Massilia (about B. C. 334) round the NW. shores of Europe, described in his lost works, wept тоû wкeavоû and πepiodos tŷs yns, which are frequently cited by Strabo, Pliny, and others (Dict. of Biog. s. v.); the voyage of Polybius, with the fleet of Scipio, along the W. coast of Africa [LIBYA]; and the intercourse of the Romans with the British isles [BRITANNIA]. But, as the Atlantic was not, like the Indian Ocean, a great highway of commerce, and there was no motive for the navigation of its stormy seas beyond the coasts of Spain and Gaul, little additional knowledge was gained respecting it. The latest views of the ancient geographers are represented in the statements of Dionysius and Agathemerus, referred to above.

So little was known of the prevailing currents and winds, and other physical features of the Atlantic, that their discussion does not belong to ancient geography, except with reference to one point, which is treated under LIBYA, namely the influence of the currents along the W. coast of Africa on the attempts to circumnavigate that

continent.

The special names most in use for portions of the Atlantic Ocean were the following: OCEANUS GADITANUS, the great gulf (if the expression may be allowed) outside the Straits, between the SW. coast of Spain and the NW. coast of Africa, to which, as has been seen above, some geographers gave the name of the Atlantic Sea or Gulf, in a restricted sense: OCEANUS CANTABER (Kavтáspios wкeavós: Bay of Biscay), between the N. coast of Spain and the W. coast of Gaul: MARE GALLICUM or OCEANUS GALLICUS, off the NW. coast of Gaul, at the mouth of the English Channel: and MARE BRITANNICUM or OCEANUS BRITANNICUS, the E. part of the Channel, and the Straits of Dover, between the mouths of the Sequana (Seine) and the Rhenus (Rhine). All to the N. of this belonged to the Northern Ocean. [OCEANUS SEPTENTRIONALIS.]

Of the islands in the Atlantic, exclusive of those immediately adjacent to the mainlands of Europe and Africa, the only ones known to the ancients were those called by them FORTUNATAE INSULAE, namely, the Canaries, with, perhaps, the Madeira group. The legend of the great island of ATLANTIS, and its connection with the question of any ancient knowledge of the great Western Continent, demands a separate article.

This

of their own forefathers, the priest informs Solon that the Egyptian records preserved the memory of the fact, that 9000 years earlier the Athenians had repelled an invading force, which had threatened the subjugation of all Europe and Asia too. invasion came from the Atlantic Sea, which was at that time navigable. In front of the strait called the Pillars of Hercules (and evidently, according to Plato's idea, not far from it), lay an island (which he presently calls Atlantis), greater than Libya and Asia taken together, from which island voyagers could pass to other islands, and from them to the opposite continent, which surrounds that sea, truly so called (i. e. the Atlantic). For the waters within the strait (i. e. the Mediterranean), may be regarded as but a harbour, having a narrow entrance; but that is really a sea, and the land which surrounds it may with perfect accuracy be called a continent (Tim. p. 24, e—25, a.).

The above passage is quoted fully to show the notion which it exhibits, when rightly understood, that beyond and on the opposite side of the Atlantic there was a vast continent, between which and the W. shores of Europe and Libya were a number of islands, the greatest of which, and the nearest to our world, was that called Atlantis.

In this island of Atlantis, he adds, there arose a great and powerful dynasty of kings, who became masters of the whole island, and of many of the other islands and of parts of the continent. And moreover, on this side the Atlantic, within the Straits, they ruled over Libya up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia. They next assembled their whole force for the conquest of the rest of the countries on the Mediterranean; but the Athenians, though deserted by their allies, repelled the invaders, and restored the liberty of all the peoples within the Pillars of Hercules. But afterwards came great earthquakes and floods, by which the victors in the contest were swallowed up beneath the earth, and the island of Atlantis was engulphed in the sea, which has ever since been unnavigable by reason of the shoals of mud created by the sunken island. (Tim. p. 25, a—d.)

The

The story is expanded in the Critias (p. 108, e, foll.), where, however, the latter part of it is unfortunately lost. Here Plato goes back to the original partition of the earth among the gods, and (what is of some importance as to the interpretation of the legend), he particularly marks the fact that, of the two parties in this great primeval conflict, the Athenians were the people of Athena and Hephaestus, but the Atlantines the people of Poseidon. royal race was the offspring of Poseidon and of Cleito, a mortal woman, the daughter of Evenor, one of the original earthborn inhabitants of the island, of whose residence in the centre of the island Plato gives a particular description. (Crit. p. 113, c—e.) Cleito bore to Poseidon five pairs of twins, who be came the heads of ten royal houses, each ruling a tenth portion of the island, according to a partition ATLANTIS (ἡ ̓Ατλαντίς νῆσος : Eth. ̓Ατ- made by Poseidon himself, but all subject to the Aavrivo, Procl. ad Plat. Tim.; Schol. in Plat. Rep. supreme dynasty of Atlas, the eldest of the ten, on p. 327), the Island of Atlas, is first mentioned by whom Poseidon conferred the place in the centre of Plato, in the Timaeus (p. 24), and the Critias the island, which had been before the residence of (pp. 108, 113). He introduces the story as a part Evenor, and which he fortified and erected into the of a conversation respecting the ancient history of capital. We have then a minute description of the the world, held by Solon with an old priest of Saïs strength and magnificence of this capital; of the in Egypt. As an example of the ignorance of the beauty and fertility of the island, with its lofty Greeks concerning the events of remote ages, and in mountains, its abundant rivers, its exuberant vegeparticular of the Athenians respecting the exploitstation, its temperate climate, its irrigation by natural

[P.S.]

the winds into the outer sea, "into which men no longer sail; where he came to desert islands, inhabited by wild men with tails, whom the sailors, having previously visited the islands, called Satyrs, and the islands Zarupídes" (i. 23. § 5, 6); whom some take for monkeys; unless the whole narrative be an imposture on the grave traveller. Another account is quoted by Proclus (ad Plat. Tim. p. 55) from the Aethiopica of Marcellus, that there were seven islands in the Outer Sea, which were sacred to Persephone, and three more, sacred to Pluto, Ammon, and Poseidon; and that the inhabitants of this last preserved from their ancestors the memory of the exceedingly large island of Atlantis, which for many ages had ruled over all the islands in the Atlantic Sea, and which had been itself sacred to Poseidon. Other passages might be quoted, but the above are the most important.

moisture in the winter, and by a system of aqueducts | during which he had been carried by the force o 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.

The chief variations of opinion, in ancient and modern times, respecting these traditions, are the following. As to their origin, some have ascribed them to the hypotheses, or purely fictitious inventions of the early poets and philosophers; while others have accepted them as containing at least an element of fact, and affording, as the ancients thought, evidence of the existence of unknown lands in the Western Ocean, and, as some modern writers suppose, indications that America was not altogether unknown to the peoples of antiquity. As to the significance of the legend, in the form which it received from the imagination of the poets and philosophers, some have supposed that it is only a form of the old tradition of the "golden age;" others, that it was a symbolical representation of the contest between the primeval powers of nature and the spirit of art and science, which plays so important a part in the old mythology; and others that it was merely intended by Plato as a form of exhibiting his ideal polity: the second of these views is ably supported by Proclus in his commentary on the Timaeus; and has a great deal to be said in its favour. As to the former question, how far the legend may contain an element of fact, it seems impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion. Those who regard it as pure fiction, but of an early origin, view it as arising out of the very ancient notion, found in Homer and Hesiod, that the abodes of departed heroes were in the extreme west, beyond the river Oceanus, a lo

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 satyr Silenus to the Phrygian Midas; and Strabo just mentions, on the authority of Theo-cality naturally assigned as beyond the boundaries pompus and Apollodorus, the same legend, in which the island was called Meropis and the people Meropes (Meроrís, Méроnes, the word used by Homer and Hesiod in the sense of endowed with the faculty of articulate speech: Aelian, V. II. iii. 18, comp. the Notes of Perizonius; Strab. vii. p. 299: comp. Tertull. de Pallio, 2.)

Diodorus, also, after 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 colonize 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

of the inhabited earth. That the fabulous prosperity and happiness of the Atlantines was in some degree connected with those poetical representations, is very probable; just as, when islands were actually discovered off the coast of Africa, they were called the Islands of the Blest. [FORTUNATAE INSULAE.] But still, important parts of the legend are thus left unaccounted for; its mythological character, its derivation from the Egyptian priests, or other Oriental sources; and, what is in Plato its most important part, the supposed conflict of the Atlantines with the people of the old world. A strong argument is derived also from the extreme improbability of any voyagers, at that early period, having found their way in safety across the Atlantic, and the double draft upon credulity involved in the supposition of their safe return; the return, however, being generally less difficult than the outward voyage. But this argument, though strong, is not decisive against the possibility of such a voyage. The opinions of the ancients may be gathered up in a few

words. Proclus (ad Tim. p. 24) tells us that
Crantor, the first commentator on Plato, took the
account for a history, but acknowledged that he
incurred thereby the ridicule of his contemporaries.
Strabo (ii. p. 102) barely mentions the legend,
quoting the opinion of Poseidonius, that it was pos-
sibly true; and Pliny refers to it with equal brevity
(vi. 31. s. 36). But of far more importance than
these direct references, is the general opinion, which
seems to have prevailed more or less from the time
when the globular figure of the earth was established,
that the known world occupied but a small portion
of its surface, and that there might be on it other
islands, besides our triple continent. Some state-
ments to this effect are quoted in the preceding
article [ATLANTICUM MARE]. Mela expressly
affirms the existence of such another island, but he
places it in the southern temperate zone (i. 9. § 2).
Whether such opinions were founded on the vague
records of some actual discovery, or on old mythical
or poetical representations, or on the basis of sci-
entific hypothesis, can no longer be determined; but,
from whatever source, the anticipation of the dis-
covery of America is found (not to mention other and
less striking instances) in a well-known passage of
Seneca's Medea, which is said to have made a deep
impression on the mind of Columbus (Act ii. v. 375,
et seq.):-

"Venient annis saecula seris,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes;
Nec sit terris ultima Thule."

thesis, too, the war of the Atlantines and the Greeks might possibly refer to some very ancient conflict with the peoples of western Europe. [P.S.]

ATLAS ("Ατλας: adj. "Ατλας, fem. 'Ατλαντίς: 'ATλaVTIKÓS, Atlanticus, Atlanteus), a name transferred from mythology to geography, and applied to the great chain of mountains in the NW. of Africa, which we still call by the same name. But the application of the name is very different now from what it was with the ancients. It is now used to denote the whole mountain system of Africa between the Atlantic Ocean on the W. and the Lesser Syrtis on the E., and between the Mediterranean on the N. and the Great Desert (Sähăra) on the S.; while, in the widest extent assigned to the name by the ancients, it did not reach further E. than the frontier of Marocco; and within this limit it evidently has different significations. To understand the several meanings of the word, a brief general view of the whole mountain chain is necessary.

The western half of North Africa is formed by a series of terraces, sloping down from the great desert table land of North Central Africa to the basin of the Mediterranean; including in this last phrase that portion of the Atlantic which forms a sort of gulf between Spain and the NW. coast of Africa. These terraces are intersected and supported by mountain ranges, having a general direction from west to east, and dividing the region into portions strikingly different in their physical characters. It is only of late years that any approach has been made to an accurate knowledge of this mountain system; and great parts of it are still entirely unexplored. In the absence of exact knowledge, both ancient and modern writers have fallen into the temptation of making out a plausible and symmetrical system by aid of the imagination. Thus Herodotus (ii. 32, iv. 181) divides the whole of N. Africa (Libya) W. of the Nile-valley into three parallel regions: the in

In modern times the discussion has been carried on with great ingenuity, but with no certain result. All that has been said, or perhaps that can be said upon it, is summed up in the Appendix of Cellarius to his great work on ancient geography, "De Novo Orbe, an cognitus fuerit veteribus (vol. ii. p. 251-habited and cultivated tract along the coast; the 254), and in Alexander von Humboldt's Kritische Untersuchungen über die historische Entwickelung der geographischen Kenntnisse der neuen Welt, Berlin, 1826.

Country of Wild Beasts ( npiwdns) S. of the former; and, S. of this, the Sandy Desert (váμuos kal ăvvdpos deivŵs kal épîμos távtwv, comp. iv. 184, sub fin.), or, as he calls it in iv. 181, a ridge of sand, One point seems to deserve more consideration extending like an eyebrow (öppun váμuns) from than it has received from the disputants on either Thebes in Egypt to the Pillars of Hercules. A siside; namely, whether the stories of ancient voyagers, milar threefold division has been often made by mowhich seem to refer to lands across the Atlantic, dern writers, varying from that of Herodotus only in may not, after all, be explained equally well by sup- naming the central portion, from its characteristic posing that the distant regions reached by these ad- vegetation, the Country of Palms (Beled-el-Jerid); venturers were only parts of the W. shores of Europe and the parallel chains of the Great and Lesser Atlas or Africa, the connection of which with our continent have been assigned as the lines of demarcation on was not apparent to the mariners who reached them the S. and in the middle. Such views have just after long beating about in the Atlantic. By the enough foundation in fact to make them exceedingly earliest navigators everything beyond the Straits apt to mislead. The true physical geography of the would be regarded as remote and strange. The story region does not present this symmetry, either of ar of Euphemus, for example, might be almost matched rangement or of products. It is true that the whole by some modern adventures with negroes or apes on region may be roughly divided into two portions, the the less known parts of the W. coast of Africa. It is cultivated land and the sandy desert (or, as the worthy of particular notice, that Plato describes At- Arabs say, the Tell and the Sahara), between which lantis as evidently not far from the Straits, and allots the main chain of Atlas may be considered, in a very the part of it nearest our continent to Gadeirus, the general sense, as the great barrier; and that there twin brother of Atlas, the hero eponymus of the city are districts between the two, where the cultivation of Gades or Gadeira (Cadiz) If this explanation of the soil ceases, and where the palm chiefly, but be at all admissible (merely as the ultimate core of also other trees, flourish, not over a continuous tract, fact round which the legend grew up), it quite but in distinct oases: but even this general stateconceivable that, when improved knowledge had ment would require, to make it clear and accurate, a assigned the true position to the coasts thus vaguely more detailed exposition than lies within our proindicated, their disappearance from their former sup- vince. In general terms, it may be observed that posed position would lead to the belief that they had the Tell, or corn-growing country, cannot be defined been swallowed up by the ocean. On this hypo- by the limit of the Lesser or even the Great Atlas