And Atlantis had existed tomorrow - Justin Mader (ebook reader wifi TXT) 📗

was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless, I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.

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. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to their districts and villages. The leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy armed soldiers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal city-the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several differences. As to offices and honors, the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would.

Now the order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honor to the odd and to the even number.

And when they were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and enquired if anyone had transgressed in anything and passed judgment and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:-There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them-offered up for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they give judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.

There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if anyone in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten. Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells:

For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectional towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.

Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the center of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spoke as follows:

'That's just how it is, but we have watched to the pursuit of the Titans and the kings of Atlantis for a long time and endured their deeds; we now have heard that they are degenerated by frequent admixture of mortals and therefore have established as unworthy for ourselves; we must be sitting here in court to atone for all their grisly deeds. Not all, but some of our peers have brought great discord and resentment into the ranks of Kings and therefore we will destroy them with the power of thunder and water.'

Poseidon, who indeed had begot this generation of Atlantis, however, pleaded for mercy to his children and asked Zeus to desist this destruction.

So now the divine Zeus spoke: 'Of course, so be it, we will support fair these one who have followed our instructions faithfully, so that those who have turned away from us, do not have a triumph over them, who are well disposed to us and we will banish those in the depths of Tartarus. But if it turns out, however, that your children are not powerful enough, to serve us submissive, so we will destroy all the Titans, the kings and also the people of Atlantis with all of our omnipotence!'

This counsel was assumed generally and Hermes was called to teach the kings of Atlantis and urge them to act accordingly. When the ten kings of Atlantis came together again after the sixth years under the laws of Poseidon, who had engraved on the pillar of electron, and the grisly deeds of individual kings came up, discord, resentment and hatred between the various kings arose.

In particular, the three kings, who had admixture of mortals too much, had to put accountable over the other kings because of all their deeds. But these kings did not want to forswear their degenerated deeds; therefore, the other seven kings were authorized to executed their remaining relatives under the laws and the authority of the Poseidon, because they had the assent of the majority of the ten.

Since a great cry of the others began, because of their conviction and in their opinion unwarranted accusations. In fact, these kings denied the very existence of the gods and then they perpetrated the most heinous crimes of all sorts, which was written down as the supreme laws of Poseidon. They take up arms against the rest of the kings and against all other nations. However, the first King of Atlantis (the Atlantic Kronos) was initially retained with wisdom paired gentleness all possible vicissitudes of fate against the upper hand first.

But just like the kings of Atlantis compete against each other, even the titans compete against each other and there seemed the fate of battles to have taken a different outcome. When Poseidon saw his own family in danger, he handed over his trident to the Iapetus, the opponent of the (Titanic) Kronos, and this, supported by a large retinue and with his now all-powerful trident staff, the three Atlantic kings destroyed the remaining seven kings. But during the battle the island of Atlantis now was destroyed by the forces of water and fire in one night and one day. Only when the Kronos Zeus released the Hundredarms, the Hekatonchires, Iapetus and his entourage were destroyed and exiled with all auxiliary peoples into the Tartarus.

Now you have to honor the achievements of the ancestors of our people, so in any case, as it is expressed by the priests of Sais and could testify by your ancestor, oh Plato. Our people, said the priests of Isis, have fought with great bravery at sides of the true gods and defeated the false gods with honor."

"A truly beautiful and exciting story Grandpa! But it does not mean that Kronos would be the father of Zeus, and thus would be a reverse dependency? And who of the two is now the elder?"
"But, but my little Plato, ... Do you doubt the story of your grandfather and therefore by the story of your venerable ancestor? Dssz, dssz, ...! Well as I mentioned earlier, there were two of the name Kronos. On one hand, the last king of Atlantis was called Kronos / Atlas and on the other hand the great king and god of the Titans was just called Kronos too; and who now have fathered the Kronos the Zeus or the Zeus the Cronus in carnal or intellectual sense, ,,. is this worth to you more as a philosophical approach? In fact, however is, that Atlantis was destroyed by jealousy and resentment and the rejection of the gods!"

Timeflash!