Accordingly, Kritias proceeds to describe, in some detail, the formidable invaders against whom these old Athenians had successfully contended: the inhabitants of the vast island Atlantis (larger than Libya and Asia united), which once occupied most of the space now filled by the great ocean westward of Gades and the pillars of Heraklês. This prodigious island was governed by ten kings of a common ancestry: descending respectively from ten sons (among whom Atlas was first-born and chief) of the God Poseidon by the indigenous Nymph Kleito.[156] We read an imposing description of its large population and abundant produce of every kind: grain for man, pasture for animals, elephants being abundant among them:[157] timber and metals of all varieties: besides which the central city, with its works for defence, and its artificial canals, bridges, and harbour, is depicted as a wonder to behold.[158] The temple of Poseidon was magnificent and of vast dimensions, though in barbaric style.[159] The harbour, surrounded by a dense and industrious population, was full of trading vessels arriving with merchandise from all quarters.[160]
[156] Plat. Krit. pp. 113-114.
[157] Plat. Krit. p. 114 E.
[158] Plat. Krit. p. 115 D. εἰς ἔκπληξιν μεγέθεσι κάλλεσί τε ἔργων ἰδεῖν, &c.
[159] Plat. Krit. p. 116 D-E.
[160] Plat. Krit. p. 117 E.
Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid people.
The Atlantid kings, besides this great power and prosperity at home, exercised dominion over all Libya as far as Egypt, and over all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The corrupting influence of such vast power was at first counteracted by their divine descent and the attributes attached to it: but the divine attributes became more and more adulterated at each successive generation, so that the breed was no longer qualified to contend against corruption. The kings came to be intoxicated with wealth, full of exorbitant ambition and rapacity, reckless of temperance or justice. The measure of their iniquity at length became full; and Zeus was constrained to take notice of it, for the purpose of inflicting the chastisement which the case required.[161] He summoned a meeting of the Gods, at his own Panoptikon in the centre of the Kosmos and there addressed them.
[161] Plat. Krit. p. 121.
Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias would have been — an ethical epic in prose.