[149] Plato, Timæus, p. 23 C-D.
[150] Plato, Tim. p. 24 D. ἅτε οὖν φιλοπόλεμός τε καὶ φιλόσοφος ἡ θεὸς οὖσα, &c. Also p. 23 C.
[151] Plato, Krit. pp. 110 C, 112 B-D.
[152] Plato, Krit. p. 112 D. πλῆθος δὲ διαφυλάττοντες ὅ, τι μάλιστα ταὐτὸν ἑαυτῶν εἶναι πρὸς τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυναικῶν, &c.
[153] Plato, Krit. p. 111 E. ὑπὸ γεωργῶν μὲν ἀληθινῶν καὶ πραττόντων αὐτὸ τοῦτο, γῆν δὲ ἀρίστην καὶ ὕδωρ ἀφθονώτατον ἐχόντων, &c. Also p. 110 C.
Plato professes that what he is about to recount is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests.
Such was the enviable condition of Athens and Attica, at a period 9400 years before the Christian era. The Platonic Kritias takes pains to assure us that the statement was true, both as to facts and as to dates: that he had heard it himself when a boy of ten years old, from his grandfather Kritias, then ninety years old, whose father Dropides had been the intimate friend of Solon: and that Solon had heard it from the priests at Sais, who offered to show him the contemporary record of all its details in their temple archives.[154] Kritias now proposes to repeat this narrative to Sokrates, as a fulfilment of the wish expressed by the latter to see the citizens of the Platonic Republic exhibited in full action and movement. For the Athenians of 9000 years before, having been organised on the principles of that Republic, may fairly be taken as representing its citizens. And it will be more satisfactory to Sokrates to hear a recital of real history than a series of imagined exploits.[155]
[154] Plat. Tim. pp. 23 E, 24 A-D. τὸ δ’ ἀκριβὲς περὶ πάντων ἐφεξῆς εἰσαῦθις κατὰ σχολήν, αὐτὰ τὰ γράμματα λαβόντες διέξιμεν (24 A).
[155] Plat. Tim. p. 26 D-E.
Description of the vast island of Atlantis and its powerful kings.