Lord Arundell of Wardour
1885
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NOTE |
John Francis Arundell, Twelfth Baron of Wardour (1831-1906) sought to debunk Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World for The Month magazine, but having found that his subject was too big for a mere magazine article, he published the expanded pages as a book called The Secret of Plato’s Atlantis in 1885. While most of his analysis is fairly standard, the second chapter stands out for a fairly unusual argument about the origins of Atlantis, that it was in fact inspired by the Periplus of Hanno, a Carthaginian account of a voyage to sub-Saharan Africa. Though the baron’s subsequent chapters seemed to undercut his initial argument by relating Atlantis to Near Eastern flood myths, the connection to the Periplus stands out as a unique contribution to Atlantean literature.
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CHAPTER II.
CONJECTURE AS TO THE PROBABLE BASIS OF PLATO’S ATLANTIS
In my last chapter I reserved an argument of Mr. Donnelly’s for further consideration, and as it is based on one of the facts upon which he apparently obtains foothold—one of the islets or peaks, so to speak, of the submerged Atlantis—I will give it in extract:
“There was an ancient tradition among the Persians that the Phoenicians migrated from the shores of the Erythean Sea, and this has been supposed to mean the Persian Gulf; but there was a very old city of Erythia in utter ruin at the time of Strabo, which was built in some ancient age long before the founding of Gades, near the site of that town on the Atlantic coast of Spain. May not this town of Erythia have given its name to the adjacent sea? and this may have been the starting-point of the Phoenicians in their European migrations. It would even appear that there was an island of Erythia.” (Donnelly’s Atlantis, p. 310)
It will be perceived that this conjecture rests entirely on the statement of Strabo. In the first place, between Strabo’s time and the commencement of Phoenician enterprise (B.C. 1200, Lenormant) there was full lapse of time for a city to have been founded, matured, and, the monarchical stage having elapsed, to have passed through the inevitable stages of aristocracy, democracy, despotism, revolution, and decay, and so in Strabo’s time to have been entitled to the description of an ancient city.
But Strabo (the sole authority cited) himself says, according to Lenormant, without reference to this question:
"We must especially bear in mind the information preserved by Strabo (xvi. 766) with reference to the country first occupied by the Canaanites in the Persian Gulf, information which substantially agrees with that which Herodotus (i. i. v. 89; cf. Justin, xviii. 3) had collected from the mouths of the Phoenicians themselves, that the two most ancient sanctuaries of their race were situated in the islands of Tylos and Aradus (two of the existing Bahrien islands), which reproduced later on in the new country of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean the islands of Tyre and Aradus" (Fragments Cosmogoniques, p. 221).
Even if Strabo had not said it, another line of tradition would show that the Phoenicians sprang from the Erythean Sea, between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; but as this will afford evidence in another direction also, it will be convenient to reserve it. The evidence which has now accumulated will justify our reverting to Plato’s fragment with a view to discover, if possible, what its real import may be.
Plato’s Atlantis, so far as I know, has never been compared and confronted with a document, the authenticity of which is recognised by Heeren and Lenormant (it will be found in extenso in F. Lenormant, Mem. D’Hist. Ancienne, ii. 414, and also in Heeren, Hist. Researches, Afric. Nations, p. 478), viz. “the voyage of Hanno, which he has posted up ἀνέθηκεν in the temple of Kronos.” The voyage of Hanno took place circa B.C. 500, and Plato was born circa B.C. 430. This document, which has come down to us in the form of a Greek translation, may reasonably be presumed to have been accessible to Plato during his residence either in Sicily or in Cyrene.
It is my contention (1) that this document forms, so to speak, the backbone of the Atlantis. I think that I shall be able to show that Plato does not state any fact respecting Atlantis which has not been taken from this document except (2)—for I think the exceptions are sufficiently important to justify a second assertion respecting it—unless what Plato drew from the well of general or family tradition. Over the whole there is the glamour of Plato’s style and imagination.
Reserving what is preliminary, the account of Atlantis commences thus:
"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows: I have before remarked, in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions. ... And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island which I will proceed to describe. On the side towards the sea, and in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, also in the centre of the island, at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that country whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter who was called Cleito." (Critias, Professor Jowett’s Dialogues of Plato, ii. 603)
This allotment of the earth corresponds to the tradition of Pheroneus, “the father of mankind” (Clemens Alex., i. 380), to whom the distribution of mankind was attributed—“idem nationes distribuit” (Hyginus, 143), and whom Plato calls “the first.”
Hanno sailed about 500 B.C. with sixty vessels and thirty thousand colonists.
Assuming that Atlantis was idealised from the narrative of Hanno, Atlantis would be coextensive with the Carthaginian empire, including the Canary and Fortunate Islands. Poseidon, son of Kronos, was the tutelary god of the Carthaginians, as witness Hamilcar’s elaborate sacrifice to him in the war with Gelon (Juventus Mundi, p. 249); and Lenormant terms him “the Libyan Poseidon.”
The occupation of Atlantis by Poseidon, and “his begetting children by a mortal woman,” and “settling them” in a part of the island, may be conjecturally supposed to be the Carthaginian colonisation of the islands mentioned in Hanno’s narrative and of the mainland beyond the mountains of Atlas; and this seems exactly confirmed when we read in Heeren (p. 40): “The colonists which Hanno carried out consisted, as we are expressly informed, of Liby-Phoenicians, and were not chosen from among the citizens of Carthage, but taken from the country inhabitants.”
This corresponds sufficiently. It will be noticed that Plato, after the passage about Poseidon (as above), gives a description of a plain, and Hanno’s account commences thus: “When we had passed the Pillars of Hercules on our voyage, and had sailed beyond them for two days, we founded the first city, which we named ‘Thymiaterium.’ Below it lay an extensive plain.” The passage in Plato about Poseidon refers to the foundation of his first city. As regards the derivation of “Thymiaterium,” it is difficult to get beyond what old Bochart wrote, “Φυμιατήϑιον, id est Thuribulum quorsum?” Thymiaterium, Lenormant tells us, is the modern “Mamoura”—Mamora. Now, the description of Mamora very well corresponds with Plato’s descriptions. “It is situated upon a hill, near the mouth of the river Sjiboe, the waters of which, gradually widening "in their course, fall into the Atlantic at this place and form a harbour for small vessels.” “The fertile pastures, the extensive waters and plantations, which we passed on our way hither have already been remarked.” “We travelled among trees of various kinds, so agreeably arranged that the place had more the appearance of a park than of an uncultivated country. We crossed plains which were rich with verdure, and we had a view of lakes which extended many miles in length.” McCulloch (Geog. Diet.) says, “Morocco (the ancient Mauritania) has a large extent of comparatively level land. Some of the plains and valleys are of great extent and extraordinary fertility;” “the soil is now, as in antiquity, proverbial for its” fertility;” “the grass often attaining a height unequalled except in the prairies of America.” “On the northwestern side of the Atlas range the climate is healthy and genial.” Φυμιατήϑιον is only the Greek rendering of the Libyan-Phoenician name, and perhaps a fanciful rendering. Bochart’s conjecture is that it was so called because “situated in a plain,” which corresponds to the fact; and Plato describes the plain in which Poseidon (Neptune) “settled, his children” “as the fairest of all plains, and very fertile.”
Plato then proceeds abruptly to inform us that “Poseidon next, as he was a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing the streams of water under the earth, which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold; and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly on the earth.” Here Plato a little anticipated Hanno’s narrative — apparently for the purpose of introducing the earliest Athenian legend concerning Poseidon, for he is made to perform at Atlantis the same feat with which he is credited at Athens. “In his reign (Cecrops) Poseidon called forth with his trident a well on the Acropolis” (Smith’s Mythological Dictionary).
Hanno goes on to say that after passing the plain they proceeded first to the west, where, “in a place thickly covered with trees,” they “erected a temple to Neptune” (Poseidon), and then to the east, “where we found a lake lying not far from the sea,” which would correspond to “the lakes which extended many miles in length” (supra, p. 26). If they came upon a country where sea and land, land and lakes, alternated, it might have suggested to Plato’s imagination “the alternate zones of sea and land.” Plato says, “And we are further told that Poseidon, when he broke up the ground, .... made alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller; encircling one another.”
It is next stated in Plato that Poseidon proceeded “to beget five pairs of male children, dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions.” “The eldest, who was the king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and the ocean received the name of Atlantic.” The name of Atlas is here imported and transferred to the island by Plato from the traditions of Atlas on the mainland.
Then follows a long account of the settlement of the five pairs of male children, which might be allowed to pass and form the foundation for the theory of Atlantis, if, in corresponding sequence, Hanno had not added, “having passed the lake about a day’s sail, we founded cities. . .” Five cities are named, the number corresponding with the five pairs of children of Poseidon.
Plato then descants upon the wealth and possessions of Atlas; but before his eloquence has expended itself, he abruptly and incongruously says, as if in recollection of some fact, “Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those that live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains. . . .” In curious juxtaposition with this I may place Hanno’s statement just before his mention of the five cities: “We proceeded until we arrived at a lake lying not far from the sea, and filled with abundance of large reeds. Here elephants and a great number of other wild animals were feeding.”
The coincidence of the mention in both narratives, equally abruptly and unexpectedly, and in almost identical words, of elephants and other animals is noticeable, but there is another coincidence equally remarkable. Plato (p. 406) says: “The island in which the palace (the palace of Poseidon) was situated had a diameter of five stadia.” The Atlantis island, or continent, thus shrinks to these dimensions. No doubt there is mention of a central island, which implies others; but the above gives us a measure of the localities indicated, which correspond very closely with the islands mentioned in Hanno’s exploration.
Hanno says: “Thence we proceeded towards the east, the course of a day. Here we found in the recess of a certain bay a small island, containing a circle of five stadia.” “There we settled a colony, and called it Cerne.” But this small island would appear to have been their head-quarters, for it is added, “We then came to a lake: . . . this lake had three islands larger-than Cerne, whence, returning back, we came again to Cerne.”
If Hanno’s narrative lies at the foundation of Plato’s fragment of Atlantis, it is natural that what is central in the one should be central in the others, and, accordingly, that what was the. head-quarters in the one should figure as the palace of Poseidon in the other.
There is a slight resemblance in the way in which the two narratives proceed. “Enough of the royal palace. Crossing the water harbours, which were three in number" (Plato). Hanno, after the mention of Cerne, which corresponds to the palace: “We then came to a lake, which we reached by sailing up a large river. This lake had three islands.”
Several pages follow in Plato in description of the city — “the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country,” and “the relations of their governments one to another” — to which nothing in the short narrative of Hanno corresponds, and for which the explanation must he sought elsewhere. (Vide infra, ch. v. p. 77.)
At the conclusion, however, of the two narratives there are descriptions which are very similar, and leave the impression of one having been suggested to the imagination by the perusal of the other.
Hanno says: “Towards the last day we approached some, large mountains covered with trees, the wood of which was sweet-scented and variegated. Having sailed by these mountains for two days, we came to an immense opening of the sea, on each side of which, towards the continent, was a plain, from which we saw by night fire arising at intervals in all directions, more or less;” and further on, “When we had landed we could discover nothing in the daytime except trees ; but in the night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of pipes, cymbals, drums, and confused shouts. We were then afraid, and our diviners ordered us to abandon the island.”
Plato describes Atlantis thus: “The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain. . . . The surrounding mountains,” “for their number, size, and beauty,” “exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere, having in them” . . . “woods of various sorts abundant for every kind of work.” “Also whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots or herbage or woods, grew and thrived in that land.” After an account of their laws and customs, he describes their sacrifices of bulls to Poseidon — how they burnt the limbs of the bull, and took the rest of the victim to the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round, and then poured a libation on the fire; and when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool (but not extinct),” all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifice, on which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fires about the temple, they received and gave judgment . . . .” — a scene which, if accompanied, as we may imagine, with “sound of pipes, cymbals, confused shouts,” &c., would bring to the mind much the same scene which affrighted the mariners and diviners of Hanno’s fleet.
Hanno’s short narrative, or, at any rate, the Greek translation of it which has come down to us, omitting some final words about a savage people “whose bodies were hairy” — conjectured by Lenormant and others to be gorillas, that word having been wrongly substituted for the “gorgones or gorgades of the original MS.” — may be said to end with a description of a volcanic region:
“Sailing quickly away thence, we passed a country burning with fires and perfumes; and streams of fire supplied from it fell into the sea. The country was impassable on account of the heat. We sailed quickly thence, being much terrified; and passing on for four days, we discovered at night a country full of fire. In the middle was a lofty fire, larger than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. When day came, we discovered it to be a large hill, called the chariot of the gods.”
Plato’s fragment — and it is a circumstance to be noted that both are fragmentary — terminates with the following passage, which, apart from the argument, may be acceptable:
“For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well affectioned towards the gods who were their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, practising gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. . . . But when this divine portion began to fade away in them, then they, being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see they had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a most wretched state, and waiting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into his most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, sees all that partake of generation. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows:”
There is nothing more, perhaps for the reason suggested; for Hanno’s narrative or the Greek translation extends no farther.
The catastrophe which was left thus vaguely impending had to be interpreted in the light of the previous statement (p. 599) that “Atlantis was sunk by an earthquake.” Thus one narrative ends somewhat abruptly with the description of a volcano, and the other with a prognostication of a volcanic subsidence. If it were worth while, I might show a further coincidence in the approximation of the term used by Hanno, “the chariot of the gods,” with the expression of Plato, “collecting all the gods into his most holy habitation.”
As I have said, there is nothing more; but if I have succeeded in demonstrating that what is known as the Periplus of Hanno is the foundation of Plato’s Atlantis, the discovery, if I may so term it, will at any rate supply the reason why the Critias (Atlantis) was never completed, which has remained a difficulty even to Professor Jowett.
“The Critias [Atlantis] is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. . . . Why the Critias [Atlantis] was never completed, whether from accident or advancing age, or from a sense of the artistic difficulty of the design, cannot be determined” (Professor Jowett’s Introduction to Plato’s Dialogues, ii. 595).
In speaking of the Atlantis as a fiction I by no, means intend that it was a fabrication intended to deceive his contemporaries. It rather seems to me as if Plato was indulging with them in a common and customary gratification of the imagination, and that this is almost acknowledged in the following preliminary conversation: “Consider, then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead.” Socrates: “And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the advantage of being a fact, and not a fiction?” (True in so far as it was founded on Hanno.) “How or where shall we find others if we abandon this? There are none to be had” (Timæus, 27: Jowett). In other words, “I have brought an interesting document from foreign parts, and if you approve I will interweave it with our traditions.”
“There was an ancient tradition among the Persians that the Phoenicians migrated from the shores of the Erythean Sea, and this has been supposed to mean the Persian Gulf; but there was a very old city of Erythia in utter ruin at the time of Strabo, which was built in some ancient age long before the founding of Gades, near the site of that town on the Atlantic coast of Spain. May not this town of Erythia have given its name to the adjacent sea? and this may have been the starting-point of the Phoenicians in their European migrations. It would even appear that there was an island of Erythia.” (Donnelly’s Atlantis, p. 310)
It will be perceived that this conjecture rests entirely on the statement of Strabo. In the first place, between Strabo’s time and the commencement of Phoenician enterprise (B.C. 1200, Lenormant) there was full lapse of time for a city to have been founded, matured, and, the monarchical stage having elapsed, to have passed through the inevitable stages of aristocracy, democracy, despotism, revolution, and decay, and so in Strabo’s time to have been entitled to the description of an ancient city.
But Strabo (the sole authority cited) himself says, according to Lenormant, without reference to this question:
"We must especially bear in mind the information preserved by Strabo (xvi. 766) with reference to the country first occupied by the Canaanites in the Persian Gulf, information which substantially agrees with that which Herodotus (i. i. v. 89; cf. Justin, xviii. 3) had collected from the mouths of the Phoenicians themselves, that the two most ancient sanctuaries of their race were situated in the islands of Tylos and Aradus (two of the existing Bahrien islands), which reproduced later on in the new country of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean the islands of Tyre and Aradus" (Fragments Cosmogoniques, p. 221).
Even if Strabo had not said it, another line of tradition would show that the Phoenicians sprang from the Erythean Sea, between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; but as this will afford evidence in another direction also, it will be convenient to reserve it. The evidence which has now accumulated will justify our reverting to Plato’s fragment with a view to discover, if possible, what its real import may be.
Plato’s Atlantis, so far as I know, has never been compared and confronted with a document, the authenticity of which is recognised by Heeren and Lenormant (it will be found in extenso in F. Lenormant, Mem. D’Hist. Ancienne, ii. 414, and also in Heeren, Hist. Researches, Afric. Nations, p. 478), viz. “the voyage of Hanno, which he has posted up ἀνέθηκεν in the temple of Kronos.” The voyage of Hanno took place circa B.C. 500, and Plato was born circa B.C. 430. This document, which has come down to us in the form of a Greek translation, may reasonably be presumed to have been accessible to Plato during his residence either in Sicily or in Cyrene.
It is my contention (1) that this document forms, so to speak, the backbone of the Atlantis. I think that I shall be able to show that Plato does not state any fact respecting Atlantis which has not been taken from this document except (2)—for I think the exceptions are sufficiently important to justify a second assertion respecting it—unless what Plato drew from the well of general or family tradition. Over the whole there is the glamour of Plato’s style and imagination.
Reserving what is preliminary, the account of Atlantis commences thus:
"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows: I have before remarked, in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions. ... And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island which I will proceed to describe. On the side towards the sea, and in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, also in the centre of the island, at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that country whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter who was called Cleito." (Critias, Professor Jowett’s Dialogues of Plato, ii. 603)
This allotment of the earth corresponds to the tradition of Pheroneus, “the father of mankind” (Clemens Alex., i. 380), to whom the distribution of mankind was attributed—“idem nationes distribuit” (Hyginus, 143), and whom Plato calls “the first.”
Hanno sailed about 500 B.C. with sixty vessels and thirty thousand colonists.
Assuming that Atlantis was idealised from the narrative of Hanno, Atlantis would be coextensive with the Carthaginian empire, including the Canary and Fortunate Islands. Poseidon, son of Kronos, was the tutelary god of the Carthaginians, as witness Hamilcar’s elaborate sacrifice to him in the war with Gelon (Juventus Mundi, p. 249); and Lenormant terms him “the Libyan Poseidon.”
The occupation of Atlantis by Poseidon, and “his begetting children by a mortal woman,” and “settling them” in a part of the island, may be conjecturally supposed to be the Carthaginian colonisation of the islands mentioned in Hanno’s narrative and of the mainland beyond the mountains of Atlas; and this seems exactly confirmed when we read in Heeren (p. 40): “The colonists which Hanno carried out consisted, as we are expressly informed, of Liby-Phoenicians, and were not chosen from among the citizens of Carthage, but taken from the country inhabitants.”
This corresponds sufficiently. It will be noticed that Plato, after the passage about Poseidon (as above), gives a description of a plain, and Hanno’s account commences thus: “When we had passed the Pillars of Hercules on our voyage, and had sailed beyond them for two days, we founded the first city, which we named ‘Thymiaterium.’ Below it lay an extensive plain.” The passage in Plato about Poseidon refers to the foundation of his first city. As regards the derivation of “Thymiaterium,” it is difficult to get beyond what old Bochart wrote, “Φυμιατήϑιον, id est Thuribulum quorsum?” Thymiaterium, Lenormant tells us, is the modern “Mamoura”—Mamora. Now, the description of Mamora very well corresponds with Plato’s descriptions. “It is situated upon a hill, near the mouth of the river Sjiboe, the waters of which, gradually widening "in their course, fall into the Atlantic at this place and form a harbour for small vessels.” “The fertile pastures, the extensive waters and plantations, which we passed on our way hither have already been remarked.” “We travelled among trees of various kinds, so agreeably arranged that the place had more the appearance of a park than of an uncultivated country. We crossed plains which were rich with verdure, and we had a view of lakes which extended many miles in length.” McCulloch (Geog. Diet.) says, “Morocco (the ancient Mauritania) has a large extent of comparatively level land. Some of the plains and valleys are of great extent and extraordinary fertility;” “the soil is now, as in antiquity, proverbial for its” fertility;” “the grass often attaining a height unequalled except in the prairies of America.” “On the northwestern side of the Atlas range the climate is healthy and genial.” Φυμιατήϑιον is only the Greek rendering of the Libyan-Phoenician name, and perhaps a fanciful rendering. Bochart’s conjecture is that it was so called because “situated in a plain,” which corresponds to the fact; and Plato describes the plain in which Poseidon (Neptune) “settled, his children” “as the fairest of all plains, and very fertile.”
Plato then proceeds abruptly to inform us that “Poseidon next, as he was a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing the streams of water under the earth, which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm water and the other of cold; and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly on the earth.” Here Plato a little anticipated Hanno’s narrative — apparently for the purpose of introducing the earliest Athenian legend concerning Poseidon, for he is made to perform at Atlantis the same feat with which he is credited at Athens. “In his reign (Cecrops) Poseidon called forth with his trident a well on the Acropolis” (Smith’s Mythological Dictionary).
Hanno goes on to say that after passing the plain they proceeded first to the west, where, “in a place thickly covered with trees,” they “erected a temple to Neptune” (Poseidon), and then to the east, “where we found a lake lying not far from the sea,” which would correspond to “the lakes which extended many miles in length” (supra, p. 26). If they came upon a country where sea and land, land and lakes, alternated, it might have suggested to Plato’s imagination “the alternate zones of sea and land.” Plato says, “And we are further told that Poseidon, when he broke up the ground, .... made alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller; encircling one another.”
It is next stated in Plato that Poseidon proceeded “to beget five pairs of male children, dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions.” “The eldest, who was the king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and the ocean received the name of Atlantic.” The name of Atlas is here imported and transferred to the island by Plato from the traditions of Atlas on the mainland.
Then follows a long account of the settlement of the five pairs of male children, which might be allowed to pass and form the foundation for the theory of Atlantis, if, in corresponding sequence, Hanno had not added, “having passed the lake about a day’s sail, we founded cities. . .” Five cities are named, the number corresponding with the five pairs of children of Poseidon.
Plato then descants upon the wealth and possessions of Atlas; but before his eloquence has expended itself, he abruptly and incongruously says, as if in recollection of some fact, “Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those that live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains. . . .” In curious juxtaposition with this I may place Hanno’s statement just before his mention of the five cities: “We proceeded until we arrived at a lake lying not far from the sea, and filled with abundance of large reeds. Here elephants and a great number of other wild animals were feeding.”
The coincidence of the mention in both narratives, equally abruptly and unexpectedly, and in almost identical words, of elephants and other animals is noticeable, but there is another coincidence equally remarkable. Plato (p. 406) says: “The island in which the palace (the palace of Poseidon) was situated had a diameter of five stadia.” The Atlantis island, or continent, thus shrinks to these dimensions. No doubt there is mention of a central island, which implies others; but the above gives us a measure of the localities indicated, which correspond very closely with the islands mentioned in Hanno’s exploration.
Hanno says: “Thence we proceeded towards the east, the course of a day. Here we found in the recess of a certain bay a small island, containing a circle of five stadia.” “There we settled a colony, and called it Cerne.” But this small island would appear to have been their head-quarters, for it is added, “We then came to a lake: . . . this lake had three islands larger-than Cerne, whence, returning back, we came again to Cerne.”
If Hanno’s narrative lies at the foundation of Plato’s fragment of Atlantis, it is natural that what is central in the one should be central in the others, and, accordingly, that what was the. head-quarters in the one should figure as the palace of Poseidon in the other.
There is a slight resemblance in the way in which the two narratives proceed. “Enough of the royal palace. Crossing the water harbours, which were three in number" (Plato). Hanno, after the mention of Cerne, which corresponds to the palace: “We then came to a lake, which we reached by sailing up a large river. This lake had three islands.”
Several pages follow in Plato in description of the city — “the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country,” and “the relations of their governments one to another” — to which nothing in the short narrative of Hanno corresponds, and for which the explanation must he sought elsewhere. (Vide infra, ch. v. p. 77.)
At the conclusion, however, of the two narratives there are descriptions which are very similar, and leave the impression of one having been suggested to the imagination by the perusal of the other.
Hanno says: “Towards the last day we approached some, large mountains covered with trees, the wood of which was sweet-scented and variegated. Having sailed by these mountains for two days, we came to an immense opening of the sea, on each side of which, towards the continent, was a plain, from which we saw by night fire arising at intervals in all directions, more or less;” and further on, “When we had landed we could discover nothing in the daytime except trees ; but in the night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of pipes, cymbals, drums, and confused shouts. We were then afraid, and our diviners ordered us to abandon the island.”
Plato describes Atlantis thus: “The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain. . . . The surrounding mountains,” “for their number, size, and beauty,” “exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere, having in them” . . . “woods of various sorts abundant for every kind of work.” “Also whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots or herbage or woods, grew and thrived in that land.” After an account of their laws and customs, he describes their sacrifices of bulls to Poseidon — how they burnt the limbs of the bull, and took the rest of the victim to the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round, and then poured a libation on the fire; and when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool (but not extinct),” all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground at night near the embers of the sacrifice, on which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fires about the temple, they received and gave judgment . . . .” — a scene which, if accompanied, as we may imagine, with “sound of pipes, cymbals, confused shouts,” &c., would bring to the mind much the same scene which affrighted the mariners and diviners of Hanno’s fleet.
Hanno’s short narrative, or, at any rate, the Greek translation of it which has come down to us, omitting some final words about a savage people “whose bodies were hairy” — conjectured by Lenormant and others to be gorillas, that word having been wrongly substituted for the “gorgones or gorgades of the original MS.” — may be said to end with a description of a volcanic region:
“Sailing quickly away thence, we passed a country burning with fires and perfumes; and streams of fire supplied from it fell into the sea. The country was impassable on account of the heat. We sailed quickly thence, being much terrified; and passing on for four days, we discovered at night a country full of fire. In the middle was a lofty fire, larger than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. When day came, we discovered it to be a large hill, called the chariot of the gods.”
Plato’s fragment — and it is a circumstance to be noted that both are fragmentary — terminates with the following passage, which, apart from the argument, may be acceptable:
“For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well affectioned towards the gods who were their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, practising gentleness and wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. . . . But when this divine portion began to fade away in them, then they, being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see they had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a most wretched state, and waiting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into his most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, sees all that partake of generation. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows:”
There is nothing more, perhaps for the reason suggested; for Hanno’s narrative or the Greek translation extends no farther.
The catastrophe which was left thus vaguely impending had to be interpreted in the light of the previous statement (p. 599) that “Atlantis was sunk by an earthquake.” Thus one narrative ends somewhat abruptly with the description of a volcano, and the other with a prognostication of a volcanic subsidence. If it were worth while, I might show a further coincidence in the approximation of the term used by Hanno, “the chariot of the gods,” with the expression of Plato, “collecting all the gods into his most holy habitation.”
As I have said, there is nothing more; but if I have succeeded in demonstrating that what is known as the Periplus of Hanno is the foundation of Plato’s Atlantis, the discovery, if I may so term it, will at any rate supply the reason why the Critias (Atlantis) was never completed, which has remained a difficulty even to Professor Jowett.
“The Critias [Atlantis] is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. . . . Why the Critias [Atlantis] was never completed, whether from accident or advancing age, or from a sense of the artistic difficulty of the design, cannot be determined” (Professor Jowett’s Introduction to Plato’s Dialogues, ii. 595).
In speaking of the Atlantis as a fiction I by no, means intend that it was a fabrication intended to deceive his contemporaries. It rather seems to me as if Plato was indulging with them in a common and customary gratification of the imagination, and that this is almost acknowledged in the following preliminary conversation: “Consider, then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead.” Socrates: “And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the advantage of being a fact, and not a fiction?” (True in so far as it was founded on Hanno.) “How or where shall we find others if we abandon this? There are none to be had” (Timæus, 27: Jowett). In other words, “I have brought an interesting document from foreign parts, and if you approve I will interweave it with our traditions.”
Source: Lord Arundell of Wardour, The Secret of Plato's Atlantis (London Burns and Oates, 1885), 22-32.
