Atlantis. The beginning of Western Civilization (I)
The Greek poet Hesiod has been the first to hand down the most important information about the ancient western mythology1. He wrote that during the Golden Age men lived without suffering anguish, misery and old age. They fed on the fruits that the earth spontaneously offered in abundance. Human beings were born directly from the earth and there was no sexual generation.
The Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.) in two famous treatises2 tells us the myth of a lost continent: Atlantis. He reports that his ancestor Solon3 had met an Egyptian priest in the temple of Sais City consecrated to goddess Neith (corresponding to the Greek Athena, the devī of wisdom). The Egyptian priest began with the story of two persons born during the Golden Age. Their names were Euenores (the “Viril one”) and Leukippes (“She of white horses”, the dawn, similar to Uṣas). Both were born from the earth therefore they were two Gold Age hyperboreans. They joined in marriage and for the first time a woman gave birth to a little girl. They called their daughter Kléitos, the “Celebrated”. Leukippes, Euenores and Kléitos didn’t live anymore in the Arctic Home as the ancient Hyperboreans, but in an island of the western Ocean. Their new home and the fact that human beings were reproducing sexually4 indicate that they were no more in the Gold Age, but in the Silver Age.
At the beginning of the cycle, Zeus (Greek: Ζεύς πατήρ, read Zèus patèr; Lat. Iuppiter, read Yùppiter; Sskr. *aEs! ipta, Dyaus pitā) had shared the rule of the world with his brothers. He had kept the atmosphere and the sky for himself giving the underground kingdom to his brother Hades (Greek: ᾍδηϛ; Lat.: Pluto; Sskr.: ~ Mṛtyu) and the lowest waters domain (samudra) to his second brother Poseidon (Greek: Ποσειδῶν, read Poseidòn; Lat.: Neptūnus; Sskr. ~ Varuṇa).
As God of the Sea, all the islands were in Poseidon’s dominion; he saw Kléitos and he fell in love with her. He had ten children from her. Poseidon fortified the hill where his beloved was living and made it inexpugnable by building three water rings and three earth rings around the island.
That kingdom became the first naval power of human history. In the centre of the island, on the top of the hill, the citadel had the walls made of horeichalkos, a mysterious metal brightful as gold. In the centre of the citadel Poseidon’s temple dominated the hill. The God divided the realm into ten fiefs and assigned them to each of his ten sons. He crowned his older son Atlas as King of the whole Empire. For this reason the island has been called Atlantis. Poseidon also gave written laws of great wisdom.
Plato adds that Atlantis was a great island in the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Hercules Columns (i.e. Gibraltar Strait); it was wider than North Africa and the Near East together. The Greek philosopher also maintains that westwards beyond the island there was another large unknown continent. Therefore America was already known in the ray of Atlantean influence. In fact, Atlantis become powerful and founded colonies in America5, in Europe, including Italy (called Tyrrenia), and in Africa up to the borders of Egypt.
The Empire was prosperous and the earth offered abundant fruits and vegetables. Besides sailing and trading, Atlanteans were very skilled in metallurgy. They worked gold, silver, copper, pond, bronze and the mysterious horeichalkos. Their society was organized in four casts living in harmony. In a first period the behavior proceeding from their divine origin prevailed, and they were righteous and wise. Subsequently, their human nature emerged and they became greedy and unjust. Finally, the demonic component rose up and they became violent, thirsty of blood and devoted to magic. The powerful and rich city of Gadira, they founded in southern Spain, still exists with the name of Cadiz. Beyond a group of colonies, most European, African and Asian countries were under their political hegemony and cultural influence. Among these last nations Athens and Egypt were particularly flourishing. As Plato confirms us, such Athens was not the city where he was living and teaching. That Athens was a primordial town which many centuries later founded the homonymous city as its colony in Greece. Where was the primordial Athens? According to the most acceptable hypothesis it was in Egypt. Plato relates that his ancestor Solon had been informed about Atlantis history in Sais, an Egyptian city consecrated to the Goddess Athena. Therefore it is easy to infer that the primordial Athens and Sais were one and only city6.
In the distribution of the world performed by Zeus, the Gods Hephaestus and Athena7 received the territory of Athens. Those Gods had begot virtuous men and established their law following the social model of Atlantis: the priest class was separated from the others; the warriors had the task of defending them; the third class was composed by artisans and finally there were shepherds and peasants. Warriors were the guardians, φύλακοι (read: fülacoi), of the perfect functioning of society.
During the Bronze Age the Atlanteans, increasingly greedy of power, wanted to conquer the whole world. They spread across all continents. The Athenian heroic warriors with their allies stopped the invasion. This glorious victory took place nine thousand years before Plato.
After the defeat the Atlanteans became increasingly cruel and aggressive. They dedicated themselves to bloody sacrifices in which they drunk the victim’s blood, so turning in black magic worshippers. Their nature quickly became more and more diabolical and they decided at all costs to take revenge and regain the whole world. Gods disgusted by their bullying sent a deluge, and in one day and one night Atlantis sank into the bottom of the ocean. Along with Atlantis, many nations were also involved in the catastrophe, including Athens. This flood, like the one which submerged Dvārakā, concluded the Bronze Age and began the present Iron Age. Only a few Atlantean colonies survived both eastward and westward of the missing continent. In those civilizations the evil seed generated by Atlantis remained ready to develop at every favorable opportunity.
Durgādevī
- Hesiod lived in the 8th Century B. C. Three among his mythological works have survived: Works and Days, Theogony, and Shield of Heracles.[↩]
- Timaeus and Critias Dialogues.[↩]
- Greek lawgiver and poet (7th-6th century B.C.); he is traditionally remembered as one of the Seven Wise Men (group of vidvas similar to the seven ṛṣis).[↩]
- Just as suggested by the name of Euenores. In the Bible, God created the man from red clay. Adam means “red clay”. From Adam’s body God extracted the woman. Only after the loss of Eden (i.e of the Golden Age) Adam and Eve were able to beget their children.[↩]
- The Aztecs claimed to come from a vast island to the east of American continent, which they called Aztlan.[↩]
- According to Greek mythology, the founder and first King of the Greek Athens has been the Egyptian Kekrops (=with a visible tail) who consecrated the city to Athena Goddess. In this way we get the mythic confirmation of our hypothesis. It is interesting that Kekrops was described as half man and half serpent (nāgarāja), indicating his Atlantean origin. It is also interesting the phonetic assonance between Kekrops and Kyclops (Cyclops). We also know that the Egyptian city of Sais founded Athens in Greece (Diodorus Siculus, Biblioteca Historica, I.28.4).[↩]
- Hephaestus, the blacksmith God, represents the Atlantean component in Egyptian Tradition.[↩]