Critias on Superphysics

Critias

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Persons Of The Dialogue

Critias, Hermocrates, Timaeus, Socrates.

TIMAEUS: Thank God that I have arrived at last.

I pray the being who always was of old, and has now been by me revealed, to grant that my words may endure in so far as they have been spoken truly and acceptably to him; but if unintentionally I have said anything wrong, I pray that he will impose upon me a just retribution, and the just retribution of him who errs is that he should be set right.

The Atlanteans

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand.

Prehistoric Greece

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

9,000 years had passed since the war between those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them.

One side was led by the city of Athens.
The other side was made up of the kings of Atlantis which was an island larger than Libya and Asia [the Middle East]

It was afterwards sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable barrier of mud [isthmus of Panama] to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean.

The Sons of Poseidon [Enki]

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Poseidon [Enki faction] received for his lot the island of Atlantis.

He begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe.

The Design of Atlantis

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

They arranged the whole country in the following manner:

First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the very beginning 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 went 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 harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges 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 they covered over the channels so as to leave 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 every side, 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 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 colour 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, to be an offering to each of the ten.