New Light on Atlantis and the Exodus

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NEW LIGHT ON ATLANTIS AND THE EXODUS

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES, LTD. AUTUMN LECTURES 1962 by J. G. Bennett

FIRST SERIES - NATURAL CATASTROPHES THAT CHANGE HISTORY

Second lecture, Monday, October 8th, 1962

The subject of my lecture tonight is, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable developments in our knowledge of Greek and biblical history since Schliemann rediscovered Troy. I make bold to say this because I personally do not claim any of the credit, which is due to Professor Angelos G. Galanopoulos, Head of the Seismological Department of the University of Athens, whose published articles and information sent to me in private correspondence have provided the key to an interpretation of Plato's story of Atlantis that is I am sure the right one. I myself reached further conclusions particularly as regards the connection between the destruction of Atlantis and the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. For these conclusions I alone take the responsibility. They are so startling that I put them forward at this stage only as striking illustrations of the general theme of these lectures that0 there is a providential connection between things that happen to the Earth and many events of human history both great and small.

I hope to convince you that one single prodigious catastrophe was responsible for the destruction of Atlantis, for the Flood of Deucalion described in Greek literature, and for the plagues of Egypt which made the Exodus possible.

We must begin with Plato's story. I shall assume that you have all read the relevant passages of the Timaeus and the Critias.1 The first question is whether the story is and is intended to be an historical account of events that actually occurred or whether, as most scholars have supposed- a myth invented by Plato to illustrate his theme. I am sure that Plato intended the story of Atlantis to be read as history. It is not really relevant to the subject matter of the Timaeus; and

1 Included at the end of the transcription as an Appendix

Plato seems to have brought it in because he was genuinely impressed by what he had heard from Critias. He refers to it several times as an authentic tradition, whereas in the case of other stories, for example, the tale in Book X of the Timaeus, of Er the son of Armenius the Pamphylian, he speaks of "tales which have been preserved”. No one who reads the Timaeus and Critias and compares the account of Atlantis with the tales and fables in other dialogues can doubt that Plato believed that the kingdoms of Atlantis really existed and were suddenly destroyed by a catastrophe.

Moreover, he gives a clear account of how the story came to his knowledge. He says that Solon. The great law giver of Athens had in his early travels visited Egypt and while discussing the story of the Flood of Deucalion had been told by the Egyptian priests that the Greeks were mere babes who had no knowledge of the ancient past. He had then been told the story in which the Athenians played a dramatic and noble part, and had decided to write an epic poem. The old Critias who had known Solon was convinced that the poem would have been written. but for Solon's preoccupation with Athenian affairs and that it would have rivaled or even surpassed Homer’s “Iliad.”

When Jowett made his translation of Plato, he dismissed the story of Atlantis as an invention of Plato himself, with no historical foundation whatsoever. The same skeptical attitude was shown towards the Homeric poems and the stories of the Old Testament. Archaeological discovery has shown that all this skepticism was unjustified. Since Schliemann rediscovered Troy and Mycenae, our attitude to Homer has become one of great respect for his historical accuracy and the same is true of Herodotus. This applies even more strikingly too many of the stories of the Bible. The tendency today is to take ancient traditions very seriously, and this alone should justify us in accepting Plato's assessment of the Atlantis story as probably correct.

When, however, we come to study the. story itself, we find that there are contradictions that make it impossible to take the whole of it literally. These contradictions concern, the chronology on the one hand and the description of the culture and relationships of Atlantis on the other. According to the story told by Critias, Solon was informed by the Egyptian priests that Athens had existed 9,000 years before and had been engaged in a life and death struggle with the kings of Atlantis when the great destruction suddenly occurred. He also adds that the story was written down a thousand years later. This in itself throws doubt upon the chronology even before we begin to study its implications.

Very little knowledge of the discoveries of ancient history and prehistory is enough to convince us that the description of Atlantis given by Plato applies to a Bronze Age civilization. Now the Bronze Age dates from about 2200 to 1000 B.C. Before 3000 B.C. all the peoples of the world were still in the Neolithic or New Stone Age. After 1000 B.C. the Age of Iron began. There is no description of iron in Plato's story of Atlantis, but there are many references to gold, copper, aurichalcum and, most significant of all, to tin. These references justify us in fixing with confidence the extreme limits of the Age of Atlantis as being between 2200 B. C. and 1000 B C. The date alleged to have been given by the Egyptian priests works out at 11,500 years before the present. At that time Northern Europe was still in the throes of the last Ice Age, and

although the glaciers had not reached the Mediterranean, the climate must have been far too cold for the way of life that the Atlanteans enjoyed. In any case it is quite certain that there were no Egyptian priests 11,500 years ago to observe and make records of historical events. The ancient history of Egypt has been established in great detail. Although some early dates are still in dispute, there is no doubt at all that the use of writing did not reach Egypt until 3500 B.C. at the earliest, that is, 5000 years later than the Egyptian priests were supposed to have written down the story of Atlantis.

The solution of the problem is I think, quite obvious. The description of the culture of Atlantis can be accepted, but the chronology must be rejected. Very probably Solon made a mistake in interpreting the story he received, and read 1,000 for 100. This might have happened also in the transmission of the story by Critias, if we correct the 9,000 years to 900 years, the destruction of Atlantis would fall between 1400 and 1500 B. C. This admirably fits the description; that time was the height of the Bronze Age civilization, and there was a great, development of shipping and commerce. The types of buildings and the way that people lived and behaved in all parts of the world of which we have some record agree quite well with the description in the Critias of Plato. The mistake is a simple one and easily made, and it does not detract from the historical value of Plato's account.

Now if there was a mistake in the reading of a symbol whereby 100 was read as 1,000, this would no doubt apply not only to duration of time, but also to distances, and it is very probable therefore, that when Plato refers to the great plain of Atlantis as being 3000 x 2000 stadia in extent, we should read 300 x 200 stadia. As the old stadium was about 600 feet, this is 100 x 70 miles instead of 1000 x 7002. The smaller figure is far more plausible because in the second millennium B.C. there were no means of measuring distances as great as 1,000 miles. It seems therefore, that we can make sense of the whole of Plato's story if we change 9000 years into 900, and the size of the plain of Atlantis from 1000 x 700 to 100 x 70 miles. This latter change makes it unnecessary to suppose, as Plato did, that the island of Atlantis must be situated in the Atlantic Ocean, and there are good reasons for supposing that it must have been in the Eastern Mediterranean, partly on account of the names and partly on account of the reference to Hercules, whose journeys and labours were confined to the Eastern Mediterranean. Geologists are quite satisfied that there has not been within the last 10,000 years a great island in the middle of the Atlantic, and in any case an island of such size could not possibly have disappeared in a sudden convulsion of the kind that Plato describes.

We are therefore free to look much nearer to Athens for the site of Atlantis, and I think there is no doubt that Professor Galanopoulos is right in identifying the larger island of Atlantis with the island now called Crete. This suggestion is not new. I believe it was first made by an anonymous writer to The Times newspaper on the 19th of February 1909, drawing attention to the remarkable similarity between Plato’s description of the main island and the central plain of Crete. The following brief description will probably suffice.

2 [Editor’s note] There is apparently a mistake in Bennett’s arithmetic here, and he may have calculated for yards instead of feet. If the length of an Olympic stadium was standardized in the classical period as a distance of 200 paces (600 feet) then the dimensions of 300 x 200 stadia would be equivalent to 34 miles X 23 miles. (BB)

"Crete, one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, is about 160 miles long; and varies in breadth from about 35 miles in the middle to 10 between Rethymno and Sphakia, and only 6 miles in one place between the Gulf of Mirabellow and the coast of Hierapetra. Deep gulfs indent its northern coast, and its southern shore is rugged and rock bound. A ridge of hills extends from east to west, culminating about the centre in well-wooded Mount Psiloriti, the ancient Mount Ida, which rises to a height of about 8159 feet. Strabo called the hills in the western part of the island Leuca Oré, or "the white mountains". In the south-west the mountains almost fringe the shore. The ancient capital was situated at Knossos, near Candia, on the north. In ancient days the island was four days' sail from Egypt and two from Cyrenaica. It may well be said of Crete, as of Atlantis, that "there was a passage hence for travelers of that day to the rest of the islands, as well as from those islands to the whole opposite continent”.

In the Critias Plato says of Atlantis:

"The whole region was said to be exceedingly lofty and precipitous towards the sea, and the plain about the city [? Knossos], which encircles it, is itself surrounded by mountains sloping down to the sea, being level and smooth, all much extended; three thousand stadia in one direction and the central part from the sea above two thousand. And this district of the whole island was turned towards the south and in an opposite direction from the north. The mountains around it too were at that time celebrated, as exceeding in number, size and beauty all those of the present time, having in them many hamlets enriched with villages."

This fits admirably into what we know of Crete three thousand five hundred years ago. The sites that have been excavated at Knossos and Phaestos, at Hagia Triada and Vasiliki lie in just such a plain, with just such surroundings as Plato describes.

There are. however, far more convincing reasons for identifying Plato's Atlantis with Minoan Crete. Crete was a thalassocracy, the first great sea power in history. Its strength lay in its fleet. Plato says the same of Atlantis. Poseidon, the sea God was the protective deity of Atlantis as befits a nation whose very existence depended upon sea power. The symbol of Poseidon was the trident which also occurs in many of the Cretan frescoes. The sacred animal of Poseidon was the Bull, and the Minoan paintings and sculptures represent the bull as the central theme of their cult.

The bull is probably the decisive link between Plato's Atlantis and Minoan Crete. Plato describes the way in which the kings of Atlantis hunt the bull without weapons at the time of their great sacred festivals held every six or seven years. The famous fresco at Knossos, usually called the Toreador Fresco, shows just such an exploit. As you know, the legend of the Minotaur was associated with King Minos of Crete and very probably the story told about Theseus of the young men and women sent to be sacrificed to the Minotaur refers to an ancient memory of the sacred meetings described by Plato in connection with Atlantis

There are many such parallels. Plato says that after the bull hunt the kings of Atlantis put on splendid blue robes. The frescoes of Knossos show that blue were the royal colour and there is evidence that the blue dye first reached Asia, from the Cretan traders. Here again the link between Atlantis and Minoan Crete is suggested. The Minoan civilization is known chiefly from the archaeological work of Sir Arthur Evans, Hogarth and Mackenzie. For more than 2000 years - from 3500 B.C. to 1400 B.C. Crete was the seat of the most advanced culture of the Mediterranean. Until about 2600 it was a Neolithic, that is, late Stone Age culture. Then came copper and other metals and not long after, tin, and with tin, bronze. It is just possible that the Cretans first discovered the way to make bronze just because they had the sea trade that brought tin from the west, even from as far as Cornwall. Whatever may have been the reason, in about 2600 B.C. Crete achieved an extraordinary degree of prosperity. The great palaces were built and Cretan trade began to penetrate into all parts of the inhabited world. About 1700 B.C. there was destruction, probably not due to enemy action but to an earthquake. This was local and palaces were soon rebuilt and the Cretan thalassocracy was reestablished. There was destruction between 1400 and 1450 B.C., which was so terrible that the Minoan power was destroyed forever.

This brief history of Crete fits Plato's description if we suppose that the final destruction was due to earthquakes and volcanoes. There is, however, one striking omission. Plato refers to Atlantis as being a federation of ten kingdoms, and to the presence of a small but sacred island which was the place where Poseidon had first established the future rulers of Atlantis. If Plato’s story is history, there must have been a small island near to Crete upon which there stood a temple and the other buildings described in minute detail in the Critias.

This is where Professor Galanopoulos has made a decisive contribution to our knowledge He has given good reasons for supposing that the sacred island was Stronghyle now known as Santorin, situated some sixty miles north of Crete. It has long been known that this island was formerly an extinct volcano which blew up 3000 or 4000 years ago producing a great crater or caldera which has since been partly filled by fresh eruptions from under the sea. Galanopoulos, by obtaining the samples of carbon from under the layers of volcanic dust thrown out at the time of the explosion and subjecting them to the method of radio carbon dating, has established that the catastrophe occurred 3370 – plus or minus 100 years – before the present, that is, within 100 years of 1470 B.C. This date agrees with the archaeological estimates of the time of the final destruction of the Palace of Knossos, which is placed at the end of the 14th century BCE.

I shall give you reasons later for supposing that the precise date was 1447 B.C. This is somewhat earlier than the time assigned by archaeologists to the destruction of Knossos, but certainly it is not inconsistent. Professor Galanopoulos himself has suggested a date of 1550 B.C. but this is certainly too early to fit in with the archaeological evidence.

Now the question comes whether the great submarine volcanic eruption in Santorin could have produced the destruction of Minoan Crete. This destruction was so devastating that all the palaces at Knossos, Phaestos, Hagia, Triada, Gourma, Moklos, Mania and Zakros were

completely destroyed. Very probably the entire population was wiped out because no attempt was made to rebuild, and the later and pitiful revival was almost certainly made by immigrants from the mainland from Mycenae and Tiryns.

Last week I gave you some examples of the destructive power of great earthquakes and referred to the special terror that accompanies the eruption of a submarine volcano. I told you how the volcano of Krakatau in Java which erupted from under the sea in 1883 produced tidal waves that caused devastation for hundreds of miles and killed 40,000 people in a matter of hours. A more recent example is the great Alaskan earthquake of the 10th of July 1958. In the Seismological Society of America there is a description of the giant wave in Lituya Bay by D. Miller. The wave produced by the explosion raised the waters to a height of 1800 feet. This is shown by the fact that they actually poured over the top of a mountain 1720 feet high; to a height of 700 feet above sea level everything was denuded. Trees were ripped up by the root and the whole mountainside was laid bare. The following quotation from Miller's description will give you some idea of the tremendous destruction:

"An addition to the conclusive field evidence that water did overturn trees at the highest point on the tree line as described in the preceding paragraph, the following supports the interpretation that water rather than avalanche or sliding was the prime factor in denudation of the spur, both Ulrich and Swanson mentioned seeing water dash over the spur. The timber across the spur is sharp and even, and similar to and continuous with the tree line, known to be due to the water action in the outer part of the bay. The 'washed' appearance of the bed-rock surface almost to the highest point on the tree line. Overturned trees along the tree line, to an altitude of about 700 feet on the south- west face of the spur are preferentially oriented parallel to the tree line (and with their tops to the west) not parallel to the steepest slope, as they should be if felled by sliding or avalanching. The maximum height of destruction - 1720 feet where water surged across the spur on the south shore - far exceeds the previously reported record height of wave rushes.

The great volcanic earthquake of 1450 B.C. was far more terrible even than Krakatau or Lituya Bay. I myself visited Santorin in May 1925 the day after there had been a small eruption of the submarine volcano. This was the most tremendous natural catastrophe that I have ever seen. The waters of the sea rushed into the cavity full of molten lava and the resulting explosion threw great rocks as big as houses hundreds of feet into the air. The cloud of steam and dust rose 4000 or 5000 feet and formed a mushroom just like those that we see in photographs of atom bomb explosions. The sea all round was boiling and covered with pumice stone and sulphur. The decks of the ship were covered with dust to a depth of several inches.

Now this explosion in 1925 was less than a ten-thousandth of the intensity of the great explosion of 1450 B.C. To give you some idea of its prodigious intensity, I will make a comparison with Krakatau. There the crater or caldera was some 14 square miles, and its depth about 600 feet. The caldera at Santorin was 35 square miles and from 1000 to 1500 feet deep. The ash thrown out at Krakatau over an area of some ten thousand square miles had an average thickness of a foot. At Santorin the actual thickness of the ash and dust was from 100

to 130 feet. I myself went and visited the eastern side of the island where the layers of ash and volcanic dust have been laid bare by wind action. It is one of the most desolate and terrifying places that I have seen. It is hard to imagine that those great cliffs of volcanic dust were produced in a matter of days.

The thermal energy of the eruption a Santorin in 1450 B.C. has been calculated by Professor Peter Hedervari3 at 200 thousand million kilowatt hours. To give you some Idea of the amount of energy released I have calculated that this is enough to raise four hundred million tons of sea water to a height five thousand feet. There must have been an enormous tidal wave more terrifying than any description. At the centre of the explosion it must have risen to a height of several thousand feet. Can you picture a mountain of water hundreds of feet high rising out of the ocean and spreading out in every direction with all the added intensity of a landlocked ocean like the Mediterranean. The great wave must have swept southwards sixty miles to Crete, smashing everything in front of it. Such a wave would perhaps be the only explanation of the destruction of central Crete which I mentioned a few minutes ago. There is direct evidence of this wave reaching great heights, for lumps of pumice stone have been found to a height of 600 or 700 feet on the island of Anaphi. Pumice stone carried by the waves has also been found on the mountains Crete 100 feet or more above the level of the sea. Not only this but they have been found on the coast of Syria and in Greece, showing that the all over the Aegean Sea as far as Egypt and Syria.

In this destruction the whole of the Minoan fleet perished and probably the population was killed except those who were living on the mountain. This agrees with the description given by Plato where he says that all those who possessed the art of writing perished in the catastrophe and only a few illiterate shepherds survived on the mountainside and they were unable to transmit to their descendents the story of the splendid civilization that had been destroyed. In the explosion of Santorin, we have the historical event which Plato describes, but we also have an explanation of the failure to discover the small sacred island and the temple of the sea god which stood just where the centre of the island disappeared into the sea. This you will see when I show you the pictures of the island and the plans of the temple.

Professor Galanopoulos made a drawing of the Metropolis of Atlantis according to Plato's description and has shown how exactly it fits into the plan of the island of Santorin. It seems therefore that the riddle of Atlantis has finally been solved.

3 Hedervari, Prof. Peter. Private communication. November 25th, 1961. Professor Galanopoulos: "Thermal energy might have been about 8.016. 1026 ergs (that of the Krakatau; 1,810. 1026 ergs); Kinetik energy: 4.1024-8.1024ergs probably about 6.1024 ergs (in the Krakatau's case: 8.1024ergs); ‘The energy of the air waves: about 6. 1023 (= 430 X the energy of air-waves after the explosion of a hydrogen bomb); the energy of the tsunami (in accordance with K. Iida's method); 6. 10 23 ergs (= 3.75 X the energy of the tsunami after the Chile earthquake in 1960). The energy of the volcanic earthquake 6. 1023 ergs. ‘These data characterize the explosion of Santorin as really gigantic. It is impossible to imagine that such a great event, of a very unusual destructiveness, having occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean just before the beginning of the historical times, has been forgotten and has not been passed on as legend.’

There remains however the question as to how such terrible events could have been forgotten. Plato's explanation that only illiterate shepherds on the mountain-sides could have survived is not wholly convincing. There is, however, as Galanopoulos has shown, another ancient tradition which no doubt refers to the same event. This is the Flood of Deucalion. Deucalion was a king of Greece in whose time there was a great flood that destroyed Attica and all the surrounding country. Deucalion himself survived because he and his wife were able to take refuge in a ship. Unlike the story of Atlantis, that of Deucalion and his flood appears again and again in old Greek literature. The Greeks certainly regarded it as true history; even Aristotle, who was a skeptic and a scientist, accepts it as a fact and takes it into account in his explanations of the natural order.

Now it is of very great interest that the time of Deucalion can be dated with some confidence. On the island of Paros, in the Aegean - where the famous Parian marble comes from - there is a marble stone on which is engraved a list of the kings of Greece with the times that they ruled calculated up to the first Olympiad. Deucalion is said to have flourished 700 years before the first Olympiad, the date of which is commonly fixed at 778 B.C. This gives the Flood of Deucalion, a date somewhere about 1478 B. C. thus agreeing remarkably well with the radio carbon date of the destruction of Atlantis and the archaeological dating of the destruction of the Palace of Knossos.

If Deucalion's Flood was an historical event, then it can only have been produced by a tidal wave of the kind that is associated with a submarine volcano. You must, however, remember that this kind of eruption is also associated with torrential rains. I read you last week some accounts of the earthquakes in Java and of the days and days of continuous rain which followed them. In the story of Deucalion, it is said that the rain fell continuously for nine days and that after this the flood subsided. Hitherto Deucalion's Flood has been regarded as a mythical story, but as has so often happened, scientific and archaeological research now shows that the myth was probably genuine history.

Before I leave the subject of Atlantis and Deucalion's Flood, I would like to refer again to Plato's reference to the ten kingdoms of Atlantis. From the destruction of Minoan objects in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Italy and Sardinia, it seems quite likely that the naval power of Crete held sway over the area described by Plato as stretching as far as Libya and the Tyrrhenian Sea. This would include the ancient Etruscans and it must be that we have here the clue to the origin of this enigmatic race. There is a certain affinity between Etruscan and Minoan art, but there is no sign of any contact between the peoples. May it not be that with the destruction of 1450 B. C. and the disappearance of the Cretan fleet, the Etruscans forgot about their earlier connection with Atlantis and could never account for their own origin? It is also possible that we can connect the Cretans with the Hyksos who dominated Egypt for centuries and seem to have come from nowhere and disappeared no one knows whither. This kind of thing can happen with sea power. For 200 years the British dominated India without a land invasion. When British sea power ceased to rule the waves, British rule soon disappeared from India and if in 3000 or 4000 years archaeologists attempt to reconstruct the history of this century, they would find it hard

to explain who were the people that came to India and disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived.

I am just making these suggestions to show you how much we may be able to find out about the history of the second millennium B.C. if we understand better what was the rise and fall of Atlantis which has been arbitrarily described by Evans as the Minoan kingdom, and may also have had many other names. This is not the whole story, for the great catastrophe of Santorin produced effects beyond the reach of its tidal waves. The great explosion did not disturb the water only; it also produced an enormous air pressure that was released in two ways: one was an explosive wave that travelled rapidly and the other was an upward air current that produced great storms, rain and hail. There were also the prodigious quantities of fine dust that must have travelled for hundreds of miles. We know that the Krakatau eruption produced total darkness at midday over an area of five thousand square miles: Santorin must have produced similar effects upon a far greater scale. Remember that the dust layer round Krakatau was one-foot-thick and that round Santorin - after three thousand five hundred years - is still more than 100 feet thick.

Surely some record of such extra ordinary events must have been preserved. If so where should we look for them? Generally speaking, ancient inscriptions preserve only glorious stories of successful wars and great buildings; so we should not expect to find the story of a disaster on the walls of temples or on monuments. Moreover, the Greeks and the other peoples living in the coastal areas have left no records at all of what happened in the second millennium B.C. We should naturally turn to Egypt only a few hundred miles from Santorin and directly in the line of the prevailing winds. Do you not think at once of the plagues of Egypt described in the first ten chapters of Exodus? Darkness over the land, stones of hail and rock pouring down. great winds, the Nile suddenly flooded and suddenly run dry with frogs and flies infesting the towns and most terrifying of all, the destruction of buildings so that there was not one house of the Egyptians in which there was not one dead.

Does not all this remind you of what I read last week of the great explosion at Krakatau the sound of which was heard in Australia two thousand miles away and the dust from which spread all over the earth falling as far as Africa and Europe?

To verify the suggestion that the plagues of Egypt coincided with the Santorin explosion, let us go back to chronology. Scholars are still uncertain as to the date of the Exodus. The simplest answer is given quite plainly in the Bible. In Kings VI it is written: "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon over Israel, in the month Zio, he began to build a house to the Lord". Now the reign of Solomon has been independently and accurately fixed as from 970- 930 B. C. a simple calculation shows that this would place the Exodus at 1446 or 1447 B.C. This calculation was adopted by Sir Charles Marston in his book: 'The Bible is True' and he shows how well it agrees with what he found in the excavations of Jericho.

There are two objections to this date. One is that the children of Israel are said in Exodus XII 37. to have "set forward from Ramesse to Socoth". Now Ramesse or Raamses was the city of the Pharaoh Ramses II who reigned from 1298 - 1232 B. C. and the name Ramses was not used in Egypt before the XIX dynasty. The discrepancy is easily explained. When the story of the Exodus was written centuries after the event, Ramses was the capital city and the scribes used it to denote also the capitals of Egypt in earlier times. It appears for example in Genesis XLVII as the city where Joseph settled his father and his brethren - at least two hundred years earlier than the Exodus. We can, therefore, safely disregard the references to Ramses.

A much more serious objection is that in 1450 B.C. the ruler of Egypt was Thutmoses III, the greatest conqueror of the second millennium. At that time, he ruled over the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia and over Egypt as far south as Nubia. It is inconceivable, say the scholars, that the children of Israel would have been able to leave Egypt and invade Canaan of which Egypt was in complete control. They argue that the Exodus must have occurred under a weak ruler such as the later Pharaoh of the XIX Dynasty.

This is where we return to the providential interpretation of history. The scholars are right, but they do not take into account the miracle of synchronicity whereby Earth events can change human history.

It is true that Thutmoses III was a most powerful autocrat - but is that not the very picture that is drawn of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. Nothing would have changed his heart but a terror before which he was powerless. Just such a terror was produced by the explosion of Santorin. Everything was there: noise, darkness, the wholesale destruction of cattle, crops and buildings; great rains, hail and rock falling from the sky which no other catastrophe could have produced. Whereas Atlantis was destroyed, Egypt was plagued. The entire machinery of government must have been disrupted and for a long time - years perhaps - the rulers would have no time to think of the departed Israelites.

Is there any more specific evidence? The first and strangest is the date that Thutmoses III died - the very year 1447 B.C. that the Bible assigns to the Exodus - the very time that I have assigned to the Santorin eruption and the destruction of Atlantis. From Exodus XV it seems clear that the Pharaoh himself perished with his army and this is confirmed by the traditions.

Are we then to conclude that Thutmoses III was the Pharaoh of the Exodus? This seems to conflict with Exodus II 23 which records the death of the king of Egypt. I believe that the reference here is to Hatsheput who was the regent and effective ruler of Egypt until her death in 1480 B.C. As is well known, she adopted a man's rights and was often referred to in the masculine gender. She was perhaps. the Pharaoh of the persecution and her son Thutmoses III was the Pharaoh of the liberation. I would not venture to give an opinion about this, but I am convinced that the Exodus did take place about 1447 B.C. that it coincided with the death of Thutmoses III and also with the destruction of Atlantis and the Flood of Deucalion. I believe that no one has previously suggested a connection between Atlantis and the Exodus, but early Christian historians did connect Exodus with the Deucalion Flood. Eusebius in his Chronicle

placed the Flood of Deucalion and the conflagration of Phäeton in the fifty-second year of Moses' life. Augustine in the “City of God” connects Deucalion's Flood with the Exodus (`City of God' Book X VIII Chapters 10 and 11). I have not mentioned the story of Phäeton and the disappearance of the sun, but this may well be accounted for as the days of complete blackout caused by the Santorin dust. Moreover, we must not forget that the explosion itself probably produced a flash that might well have been mistaken for the burning up of the sun itself.

You will recollect that the Greeks were as convinced of the historical reality of Deucalion and his flood as were the Jews of the miraculous liberation of the Jews from their Egyptian oppressors. It now seems that all these events were linked together by a common cause: the great Santorin catastrophe.

If you will read Exodus, Chapters 8-12 you will see for yourselves that the description fits all that we have seen about the effects of a stupendous volcanic eruption at a distance of a few hundred miles. You may, however, ask: "Is there any evidence from the Egyptian side that such things occurred?" First of all, it was never the habit of the Egyptians to put into their records anything unpleasant; they wrote a great deal about all their conquests and all the grandeur of the Pharaohs, but when unpleasant things happened, not so very much was said. But there is one remarkable exception to this. About a hundred years ago, there a papyrus was found in Memphis near the Pyramids with a story on it that no one at first could understand, of a terrible situation that occurred in Egypt. It is called the Papyrus Ipuwer, and it is now in the museum of Leyden in Holland. I will read you some extracts and you will see that it is as if it was almost a reporter writing in the very presence of the calamity: " Forsooth, the land turns round as does a potter's wheel; the towns are destroyed; all is ruin; ages of noise. There is no end to noise; oh that the earth would cease from noise and tumult be no more, trees are destroyed, no fruit nor herbs are found; Lower Egypt weeps; the entire palace is without support. No fruit nor herbs are found; hunger, all animals, their hearts weep; cattle moan; there is no light in the land; there was a great cry in Egypt, it is groaning throughout the land, mingled with lamentations. The land was in great affliction; evil fell on this earth; nobody left the Palace during nine days and during these nine days of upheaval there was such a tempest that neither the men nor the gods could see the faces of their next".

I felt when I first read this account of an Egyptian scribe that he might have been watching, been present and that the very kind of things that one would connect with that great catastrophe in Santorin, when you are far enough away not to be blown to pieces by it; but near enough to feel the blast and experience all the terrors.

It has been calculated, by the way, that that force of the explosion was greater than 430 of the largest hydrogen bombs that could be made all going off together. That would not give one much chance to survive within a hundred miles, and of course no record would be left by anyone living within that distance of the catastrophe itself. But several hundred miles away, in Egypt, it would be just this kind of thing that you would expect to have described by somebody who actually saw it. If it is to be accepted that Moses was warned and knew that this would come, then one can understand that he would know that it was the moment for the children of

Israel to go free. It would also explain how it would be that after the catastrophe, nothing was done to interfere with them. If, as is recorded in the Midrashim, the Pharaoh himself perished at that time, then that would correspond with the death of Thutmoses III.

I would like to say just one more thing about floods, before we stop. There is an extraordinary similarity, as you probably know, between the story of the Deucalion Flood, the story of the Flood of Noah, and the Flood of Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh epic. One might say that they all referred to the same event, but this is geographically very unlikely. There could not be that kind of sudden event which produces great floods over such enormous areas; changes of the ocean bed are too slow to produce anything that could correspond to these various flood stories. But as we can see from Krakatau, from the one in Alaska, from this great one at Santorin, a certain situation can arise, where the Earth blows up in the sea and produces these flood conditions coupled with long and unceasing rainfall. And it seems on the whole likely that there have been different floods, when survival depended upon people who were able to take refuge, who were at a sufficient distance from the centre to float through them on a raft or ship. A great deal of light can be thrown on these flood stories, of which there are many in the different traditions of the world, by the work of Professor Galanopoulos on the effects of a submarine volcano. Such things do occur from time to time, especially in the earthquake belt, and when they occur, then you have conditions that do correspond to all descriptions of floods.

My own belief is that these kinds of things cannot be ascribed just to an accident of time. As I said last week, the miracle is in the timing, in the synchronicity. The mechanism is natural. Everything that I have described today, as far as the mechanism of its occurrence is concerned, obeys quite natural laws. No problem arises from the point of view of geologists, seismologists or climatologists, in explaining how such things could occur. But that they should have happened just then and just in such a way, that is against all probability. And of course, if it is really true, this suggestion that I have thrown out tonight, if these three remarkable events of ancient history: the Flood of Deucalion, the destruction of Atlantis and the plagues of Egypt and the Exodus, did all occur in one event, then it is one of the strangest and most important of the natural catastrophes that have changed the course of history and this knowledge cannot fail to strengthen the conviction that there is a providential working that connects Earth happenings with human history.

Appendix:

THE RISE AND FALL OF ATLANTIS

B.C MESOPOTAMIA SYRIA AND EGYPT CRETE AND THE GREECE AND AND ASIA PALESTINE ISLANDS ITALY MINOR

2250 SARGON THE EARLY EMPIRE KNOSSOS GREAT BABYLON OF FOUNDED MEMPHIS (2600)

2000 GREATNESS OF (2600-2350) UR (2800-1960) SESOSTRIS 1750 ABRAHAM HYKSOS GREATNESS OF CRETANS GAIN EMIGRATES INVADE CRETE CONTROL OF TRADE FROM UR EGYPT ROUTES

1700 HAMMURABI DESCENDANTS EGYPT SUBJECT FIRST (1738 – 1686) OF ISAAC IN TO DESTRUCTION OF CANAAN CRETE KNOSSOS (1700)

1650 THE GREATNESS JOSEPH IN OF BABYLON EGYPT

OLD HITTITE HYKSOS DRIVEN EMPIRE OUT OF EGYPT

1600 REVIVAL OF MINOAN CRETAN DOMINATION OF THALASSOCRACY GREEK MAINLAND

1550 RULERS FROM ISRAELITES GREAT PALACE THE SEA IN MULTIPLY IN BUILT IN BABYLON BABYLON KNOSSOS QUEEN HATSHEPUT (DIED 1480)

1500 NEW HITTITE BATTLE OF EMPIRE MEGHIDDO (1478)

1450 EXODUS OF DEATH IOF CATASTROPHE DEUCALION ISRAELITES (1447) THUTMOSES III OF SANTORIN FLOOD (1501- (CA. 1450) (CA. 1450)

SIOJOURN IN THE 1447) DESERT (1447- 1407)

1400 SUPPILULIUMA JOSHUA EGYPT CRETAN POWER IN RISE OF KING OF CONQUERS REACHES HER FULL DECLINE MYCENAE AND HITTITES CANAAN GREATEST TIRYNS (1440-1370) POWER (XVIII DYNASTY)

1350 (XIX MYCENEANS DYNASTY) DOMINATE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

1300 RAMESES II (1298- 1232)

1250 SALMANASAR GIDEON MERNAPTAH KING OF SUBDUES (1232-1224) ASSYRIA MIDIANITES “PEOPLE OF THE SEA” DRIVEN OUT

1150 TIGLATH TIME OF DECADENCE PILESER JUDGES AND OF EGYPT KINGS

1100 RAMESES IV- XI COLLAPSE OF MYCENEAN POWER

1050 SAUL 1020 – 1000 DAVID 1000- 970

1000 FIFTH DYNASTY SOLOMON DARK AGES OF OF BABYLON 970-930 GREECE

ATLANTIS

THE PLATONIC ACCOUNT

The only references made by name to the lost island of Atlantis in Greek literature are in the Timaeus and Critias of Plato. The latter is only a fragment and was never completed. It was to have given a full story of the destruction of Atlantis as it was handed down from Solon, who lived from about 640 to 559 B.C. and is known to have spent some time in Egypt.

The following extracts give all the relevant passages in these two dialogues of Plato. The translation is that of Jowett's edition.

"Critias: Then listen Socrates to a strange tale which is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and a great friend of my great- grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself says repeatedly in his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and told us: That there were of old great and marvelous actions of the Athenians, which have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction of the inhabitants, and one in particular, greater than all the rest, which we now call to mind and will recite as a suitable testimony of our gratitude to you, and also as a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess, which we sing at her festival. Socrates: Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of which Critias spoke not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action of the Athenian state, which Solon recounted?

Crit: I will tell an old world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias was, as he said, at that time nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the registration of youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling; Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reasons of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. And what was the poem about, Critias? said the person who addressed him. About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but which through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors has not come down to us. Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.

"Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your State in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was

navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you call the pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from the islands you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of the continent, and besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The vast power which was thus gathered into one endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the land which is within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she was first in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated, and triumphed over the invader, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjected, and freely liberated all the others who dwelt within the limits of Heracles. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is the reason why the sea in those, parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island."

"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 all those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and those 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 ruler and leader throughout the war; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of the island of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent greater than Libya and Asia; and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean. The progress of the history will unfold the various tribes of barbarians and Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all the Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them; and then proceed to speak of 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; and you cannot 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. Each of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled

them they tended us human beings who belonged to them 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 inheritance in different places which they set in order. "

"Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will proceed to describe. On the side towards the sea and in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an onlyy daughter who was called Cleito. The maiden was growing up to womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, enclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe, out of the centre of the island, equidistant every way, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet heard of. He himself, as he was a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing two streams of water under the earth. which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly in the earth. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and dividing the island of Atlantis, into ten portions, he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes. and gave them rule over many men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the king, he named Atlas. and from him the whole island and the ocean received the name of Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the pillars of Heracles as far as the country which is still called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the second pair of twins he called one Ampheres, and the other Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus, and Autochthon to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder Elasippus. and the younger Mestor. And of the fifth pair he gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to the younger that of Diaprepes. All these and their descendants were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction over the country within the pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a numerous and honorable family, and his eldest branch always retained the kingdom, which the eldest son handed on to his eldest for many generations; and they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and s not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they could have, both in the city and country. For because

of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided much of what was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, mineral as well as metal, and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and with the exception of gold was esteemed the most precious of metals among the men of those days. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind. both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains; and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of them. Also whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower; grew and thrived in that land; and again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible fruit and other species of food, which we call by the general name of legumes and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to play with, and are fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we amuse ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating - all these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. All these things they received from the earth, and they employed themselves in constructing their temples and palaces and harbors and docks; and they arranged the whole country in the following manner:

First of all, they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made a road into and out of the royal palace. At the same time, they built the palace in the habitation of the god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who came before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty. And beginning from the sea they bored a canal of three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and constructing bridges; the bridges were covered, and there was a way underneath for the ships; for the banks were raised considerably above the water. Now, the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth. and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two zones, the one of water, the other of land, were two stadia. and the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia. All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on all sides, placing towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre island and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs

formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, varying the pattern to please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall; which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on this wise: - In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible; and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, and performed sacrifices to each of the ten. Here, too, was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange Asiatic look. All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, adorned everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts of the walls and pillars and floor they lined with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold, there was the god himself standing in a chariot - the charioteer of six winged horses - and of such a size that he touched the roof of the buildings with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them in that day. There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private individuals. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of private individuals, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to the rest of the work, and there were palaces, in like manner, which answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.

In the next place, they had fountains both of cold and hot springs; these were very abundant, and both kinds wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the sweetness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees; also cisterns, some open to the heaven, others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the king's baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; also separate baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable for them. The water which ran off they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some set apart for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was a race- course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were guardhouses at intervals for the body-guard, the more trusted of whom had their duties appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, and were about the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace.

Leaving the palace and crossing the three harbors outside, you came to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbor, and enclosed the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel towards the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations, and the canal and the largest of the harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din of all sorts night and day.

I have described the city and the parts about the ancient palace nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must Endeavour to describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country. The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but when measured through the centre island, two thousand stadia, the whole region of the island was situated towards the south, and sheltered from the north. He celebrated the surrounding mountains for their number and size and beauty in which they exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy inhabited villages, and rivers. and lakes and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and wood of various sorts; abundant for every kind of work.

I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated during many ages by many generations of kings. It was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible. and gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so many others, could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man. Nevertheless, I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and at various points touching the city, was there let off into the sea. Above, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain- and again let off into the ditch towards the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another. and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth - in winter having the benefit of the rains, and in summer introducing the water of the canals.

As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had an appointed chief over the men who were fit for military service. and the size of the lot was a square of ten stadia, each way, and the total. number of all the lots was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude having leaders to whom they were assigned according to their dwellings and villages. The leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a light chariot without a seat, accompanied by a fighting man on foot carrying a. small shield. and having a charioteer mounted to guide the horses; also,

he was bound to furnish two heavy armed soldiers. two archers, two slingers, three stone- shooters, and three javelin men. who were. skirmishers, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal city - the order of the other nine governments was different in each of them, and would be wearisome to recount.

As to offices and honors, the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and in many cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the relations of their governments to one another were regulated by the injunctions of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the people were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honor to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about public affairs, and enquired if anyone had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment on him accordingly, and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise: - There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, who were left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might take the sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted the bulls, without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the column; the victim was then laid on the top of it and his bloodshed over the sacred inscription.

Now on the column, besides the law, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after offering sacrifice according to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of the bull, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish anyone who had previously transgressed, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions, and would neither command others nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his family, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after spending some necessary time at supper, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, near the embers of the sacrifices over which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had any accusation to bring against any one; and when they had given judgment, at day- break they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them together with their robes that they might be a testimony.

There were many special laws which the several kings had inscribed about their temples, but the most important was the following: That they were not to take up arms against one another, and that they were all to come to the rescue if anyone in any city attempted to overthrow the royal house, like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other

matters, giving the supremacy to the family of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten kings.

Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectionate towards the gods, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, practicing gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, all that which we have described waxed and increased in them; but when this divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune became changed, and to him who had an eye to see, began to appear base, having lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with love of gain and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into his most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spoke as follows: -"

DEUCALION'S FLOOD

LUCIAN'S ACCOUNT

"The generality of people (he says) tells us that the founder of the temple was Deucalion Sisythes - that Deucalion in whose time the great inundation occurred. I have also heard the account given by the Greeks themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus: The actual race of men is not the first, for there was a previous one, all the members of which perished. We belong to a second race, descended from Deucalion, and multiplied in the course of time. As to the former men, they are said to have been full of insolence and pride, committing many crimes, disregarding their oath; neglecting the rights of hospitality, unsparing to suppliants; accordingly, they were punished by an immense disaster. All on a sudden enormous volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains of extraordinary abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the sea overflowed its shores; the whole earth was covered with water, and all men perished. Deucalion alone, because of his virtue and piety; was preserved alive to give birth to a new race: This is how he was saved. He placed himself, his children, and his wives in a great coffer that he had in which pigs, horses, lions, serpents and all other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge with him. He received them all; and while they were in the coffer Ze u s

inspired them with reciprocal amity; which prevented their devouring one another. In this manner, shut up within one single coffer, they floated as long as the waters remained in force. Such is the account given by the Greeks of Deucalion.

But to this, which they equally tell; the people of Hierapolis add a marvelous narrative: That in their country a great chasm opened, into which all the waters of the Deluge poured. Then Deucalion raised an altar, and dedicated a temple to Hera (Atargatis) close to this very chasm. I have seen it; it is very narrow, and situated under the temple. Whether it was once large; and has now shrunk, I do not know; but I have seen it, and it is quite small. In memory of the event the following is the rite accomplished: Twice a year sea-water is brought to the temple. This is not only done by the priests, but numerous pilgrims come from the whole of Syria and Arabia, and even from beyond the Euphrates, bringing water. It is poured out in the temple and goes into the cleft, which, narrow as it is, swallows up a considerable quantity. This is said to be in virtue of a religious law instituted by Deucalion to preserve the memory of the catastrophe, and of the benefits that he received from the gods. Such is the ancient tradition of the temple at the north gate of which there stood two great columns each about three hundred and sixty feet high, and that once a year a man climbed to the top and sat there for seven days to signify how men had ascended to the tops of mountains to escape from the waters. "

Lucian (about 170 B.C.) from the book: "Of the Syrian Goddess".

The date of Deucalion is given on the Parian inscription as about 1530

B.C. Connection between destruction of Atlantis and Deucalion's Flood Plato's Critias 112:

"In the first place the Acropolis was not as now. For the fact is that a single night of excessive rain washed away the earth and laid bare the rock; at the same time there were earthquakes, and then occurred the third extraordinary inundation, which immediately preceded the great destruction of Deucalion. But in primitive times the hill of the Acropolis extended to the Eridanus Ilissus, and included the Pnyx on one side, and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite side to the Pnyx, and was all well covered with soil, and level at the top, except in one or two places. Outside the Acropolis and on the sides of the hill, there dwelt artisans, and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near; at the summit the warrior class dwelt by themselves around the temples of Athene and Hephaestus, in one enclosure which was like the garden of a single house. Where the Acropolis now is there was a single fountain, which was extinguished by the earthquake, and has left only a few small streams which still exist, but in those days the fountain gave an abundant supply of water, which was of equal temperature in summer and winter. "