Poseidon's paradise: the romance of Atlantis

by Elizabeth G. Birkmaier

Thus, the arts flourished especially in Thessaly; and the Atlantean industries in the New Pelasgia. Whilst commerce became supreme.

And, from the union of these primeval Pelasgians and the more cultivated Hellenes, generations afterward, sprang a people that were the fathers of the great intellectual Grecian race of antiquity.

NOTES.

“Atlantis, according to the tradition of the Greek geographers, a large island in the Atlantic Ocean to the west of the northwest coast of Africa and the Pillars of Hercules. It was fabled to possess a numerous population begotten by Neptune of mortal women. The sea-kings of Atlantis were said to have invaded the west of Europe and Africa, and to have been defeated by the Athenians and their allies. The inhabitants finally became desperately wicked, and the island was swept away by a deluge. Plato mentions the island in his ‘Timæus.’ On the old Venetian maps, Atlantis is put to the west of the Azores and Canaries.”—The American Cyclopedia.

Atlantis.—“Now, in the 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 thus gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at one blow our country and yours, and the whole of the land which was within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she was the first in courage and military skill.... And when the rest fell off from her, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders....

“But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain 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.”—Plato’s “Timæus”—per “Atlantis.”

Athens.—“For there was a time, Solon, before that great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war, and was preëminent for the excellence of her laws, and is said to have performed the noblest deeds, and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.”—Plato’s “Timæus,” per “Atlantis.”

Pelasgians.—“Amidst all the obscurity that hangs about the name of the Pelasgians, it is admitted that they were the earliest known inhabitants both of Greece and Southern Italy—at least of the Indo-Germanic stock; for throughout Europe, as well as Asia, there appears to have been a still earlier population. Now we are distinctly told that the whole seaboard of Ionia and the neighboring islands was formerly peopled by Pelasgians. They are enumerated by Homer among the allies of the Trojans; Herodotus found traces of them on the Propontis, and Agathias in Caria; and the name Magnesia, which occurs twice in Lydia, as well as in Thessaly, seems to be certainly as Pelasgic. They were found in the islands of the Ægean from Samothrace, Imbros and Lemnos, in the north, to Crete, in the south, as well as in the Cyclades, which form the natural stepping-stones from Asia Minor to the Peloponnesus. Hence, they seem to have passed from one continent to the other both round the head of the Ægean and across its islands; and, accordingly, the chief remnants of the race after they were overpowered by the Hellenes, are found in Thessaly, in Epirus, in Attica, and in the heart of Acadia. From Greece they passed over to Southern Italy; where, perhaps, the ‘golden age of Saturn’ is a tradition of the peaceful agricultural character which is everywhere attributed to the Pelasgians, in contrast to the piratical habits of the Carians and Leleges. It remains, however, a question whether the Pelasgi were a branch of the Phrygian migration, or a still earlier movement of the Indo-European race from their primeval seats. The latter seems highly probable; but, at all events the two races were very nearly akin, and it is hardly practicable to distinguish their migrations.”—“The Ancient History of the East,” by Philip Smith, B. A.

“The Hellenes and the Pelasgi are the two races identified with Greece’s earliest traditions; but when we appeal to history for their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us.”—Nott and Gliddon’s “Types of Mankind,” page 103.

Deucalion and Pyrrha.—“Deucalion married Pyrrha, daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora. Zeus determined to destroy the degenerate race of man, but Deucalion and Pyrrha, on account of their piety, were preserved. Deucalion built a ship, in which he and Pyrrha floated in safety, while a nine days’ flood devastated Hellas.”