ancient citizens.
Crit. Friend Hermocrates, you, who are stationed last and have another
in front of you, have not lost heart as yet; the gravity of the
situation will soon be revealed to you; meanwhile I accept your
exhortations and encouragements. But besides the gods and goddesses
whom you have mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all
the important part of my discourse is dependent on her favour, and if
I can recollect and recite enough of what was said by the priests and
brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall satisfy the
requirements of this theatre. And now, making no more excuses, I will
proceed.
Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum
of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken
place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all
who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the
combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have
been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the
other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was
saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when
afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud
to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. The progress
of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and
families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear
on the scene; but I must describe first of all Athenians of that day,
and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers
and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to
Athens.
In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them
by allotment. There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose
that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have,
or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by
contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of
them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled
their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us,
their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks,
excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as
shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the
vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by
the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;-thus did
they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their
allotments in different places which they set in order. Hephaestus and
Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father,
having a common nature, and being united also in the love of
philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land,
which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they
implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the
order of government; their names are preserved, but their actions have
disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the
tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors,
as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains; and
they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names
of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The
names they were willing enough to give to their children; but the
virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by obscure
traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many
generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to
the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect
of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the
enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they
begin to have leisure, and when they see that the necessaries of life
have already been provided, but not before. And this is reason why the
names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions.
This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of
that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the