Much speculation was offered, not only on the whereabouts of Atlantis, but also on the cultural achievements of its inhabitants. Plato, in another work of his (Critias), wrote a political treatise, and, as no real place in the world could have been the scene of his utopia, he chose for that purpose the sunken island. Modern scholars, finding some affinity between American, Egyptian, and Phoenician cultures, think that Atlantis may have been the intermediary link. There is much probability in these speculations; if they are justified, Crete, a maritime base of Carian navigators, may disclose some information about Atlantis as soon as the Cretan scripts are satisfactorily deciphered.
One point in Plato's story about the submersion of Atlantis requires correction. Plato said that Solon told the story to Critias the elder, and that the young Critias, Plato's friend, heard it from his grandfather when he was a ten-year-old boy. Critias the younger remembered having been told that the catastrophe which befell Atlantis happened 9,000 years before. There is one zero too many here. We do not know of any vestiges of human culture, aside from that of the Neolithic age, nor of any navigating nation, 9,000 years before Solon. Numbers we hear in childhood easily grow in our memory, as do dimensions. When revisiting our childhood home, we are surprised at the smallness of the rooms—we had remembered them as much larger. Whatever the source of the error, the most probable date of the sinking of Atlantis would be in the middle of the second millennium, 900 years before Solon, when the earth twice suffered great
* Plato Timaeus 24 E-25 B.
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catastrophes as a result of "the shifting of the heavenly bodies." These words of Plato received the least attention, though they deserved the greatest.
The destruction of Atlantis is described by Plato as he heard it from his source: "At a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your [Greek] warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at robin-bobin
that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down." 5
At the time when Atlantis perished in the ocean, the people of Greece were destroyed: the catastrophe was ubiquitous.
As if recalling what had happened, the Psalmist wrote: "Destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities, their memorial is perished with them." 6 He prayed also:
"God is our refuge and strength . . . therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled." T
The Floods of Deucalion and Ogyges
The history of Greece knows two great natural catastrophes: the floods of Deucalion and of Ogyges. One of them, usually that of Deucalion, is described by Greek authors as having been simultaneous with the conflagration of Phaethon. The floods of Deucalion and Ogyges brought overwhelming destruction to the mainland of Greece and to the islands around and caused changes in the geographical profile of the area. That of Deucalion was most devastating: water covered the land and annihilated the population. According to the legend, only two persons—
Deucalion and his wife—remained alive. This last detail must not be taken more literally than similar statements found in descriptions of great catastrophes all around the world; for example, two daughters of Lot, who hid with him in a cave
« Plato Timaeus 25 C-D. « Psalms 9:6. » Psalms 46 : 1-3.
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after the catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah, believed that they and their father were the only survivors in the land.1 ^*"
The chronologists among the Fathers of the Church found material for assuming that one of the two catastrophes, the flood of Deucalion or that of Ogyges, had been contemporaneous with the Exodus.
Julius Africanus wrote: "We affirm that Ogygus [Ogyges] from whom the first flood [in Attica]
derived its name, and who was saved when many perished, lived at the time of the Exodus of the people from Egypt along with Moses." 2 He further expressed his belief in the coincidence of the catastrophe of Ogyges and the one that occurred in Egypt in the days of the Exodus in the following words: J^"The Passover and the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt took place, and also in Attica the flood of Ogygus. And that is according to reason. For when the Egyptians were being smitten in the anger of God with hail and storms, it was only to be expected that certain parts of the earth should suffer with them." s
^Eusebius placed the Flood of Deucalion and the conflagration of Phaethon in the fifty-second year of Moses' life.4 Augustine also synchronized the Flood of Deucalion with the time of Moses; 5 he assumed that the Flood of Ogyges took place earlier. .-^ A chronologist of the seventh century (Isidore, bishop of Seville) * dated the Flood of Deucalion in the time of Moses; chronologists of the seventeenth century likewise calculated that the Flood of Deucalion took place in the time of Moses, close to but not simultaneous with the Exodus.7
It would seem to be more probable that, if the catastrophes oc-
1 Genesis 19 : 31.
2 Julius Africanus in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (1896), VI, 132.
3 Ibid., p. 134. 4 Eusebius, Werke, Vol. V, Die Chronik, "Chronikon-Kanon." s The City of God, Bk. XVIII, Chaps. 10, 11.
6 See J. G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament (1918), I. 159. ?Seth Calvisius, in Opus chronologicum (1629), assigns the year 2429 anno mundi or 1519 before the present era to Phaethon's conflagration, and 2432 (-1516) to the Flood of Deucalion, and 2453 (-1495) to the Exodus.
Christopher Helvicus (1581-1617), in Theatrum historicum (1662), assigns 2437 anno mundi to the Flood of Deucalion and Phaethon's conflagration, and 2453 (or 797 a Diluvio universali) to the Exodus from Egypt.
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curred one shortly after the other, the catastrophe of Ogyges took place after that of Deucalion which practically destroyed the land, depopulated it, and erased every memory of what had happened up to that time. In the words of Plato, who quoted the Egyptian priest speaking to Solon, the catastrophes must have escaped the notice of the future generations because, as a result of the devastation, "for many generations the survivors died with no power to express themselves in writing." The memory of the catastrophe of Ogyges would have vanished in the catastrophe of Deucalion if Ogyges had preceded Deucalion.8
Apparently, the truth is with those who placed the catastrophe of Deucalion in the days of Exodus; but those who reckoned that Ogyges was a contemporary of Moses were also correct, except that Moses did not live until the Flood of Ogyges—it took place in the days of Joshua.
In commemoration of the Deucalion flood, the people of Athens observed a feast in the month of Anthesterion, which is a spring month; the feast was called Anthesteria. On the thirteenth of the month, the main day of the feast, honey and flour were poured into a fissure in the earth as a sacrifice.9
The date of this ceremony—the thirteenth day of Anthesterion in the spring—is revealing if we remember what was said in the section entitled "13." It was on the thirteenth day of the spring month (Aviv) that the great planetary contact occurred which preceded by a few hours the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
The offering of honey and flour as the main ceremony of the feast is also revealing if we recollect that manna, or heavenly corn, tasting like honey, fell on the earth after the contact of the earth with a celestial body.
As to the provenance of the name Deucalion, scholars admit that