Atlantis, The Antediluvian World

Bacon

d, was no more than a light air, which had passed from a more ancient people into the f

uminated every subject which he has touched, gu

with Mr. Cox as to whether the Greek mythology was under

ir colony in Egypt. We find the Egyptians in their early ages sun and planet worshippers. Ptah was the object of their highest adoration. He is the father of the god of the sun, the ruler of the reg

u, and Bel. Bel represented the sun, and was th

s represented by Baal-Samin, the great god, the god o

nd identified him with Hercules. By his great strength and power he turned evil into good, brought life out of destruction, pulled back the sun to the earth at the time of the solstices, lessened excessive heat and cold, and rectified the

ndoos worshipped the sun under the name of Rama; while the gr

ne foot, with their hands held out before them and their faces turned to the east, adoring the sun. "In Germany or France one may still see the peasant take off his hat to the rising sun." ("Anthropology," p. 361.) The Romans, even, in later time

among all the tribes. (Dorman, "Origin of Primitive Superstitions," p. 338.)

uch ancient nations

were children. A pries

. The history of eight thousand years is deposited in our sacred books; but I can ascend to a much higher antiquity, and tell you

pict Atlantis itself as the heaven of the human race. Thus we find a great solar or nature worship in the elder nations, while Greece has nothing but an incongruous jumble of gods and

ved, immortal, though not eternal in their existence. In Crete there was even a st

planted in human nature. The savages who killed Captain Cook firmly believed that he was immortal, that he was yet alive, and would return to punish them. The highly civilized Romans made gods out of their dead

thout the loss of a moment of time." This probably alluded to the rapid motion of their sailing-vessels. "They were wise, and communicated their wisdom to men." That is to say, they civilized the people they came in contact with. They had a strict sense of justice, and punished crim

ng in dreams. They were conceived to possess the form of human beings, and to be, like men, subject to love a

tis is found in the fact that "the gods were not looked upon as having create

, etc.; "they dwelt in a social state which was but a magnified reflection of the social system on earth. Quarrels, lo

is wife Tethys: these were the Islands of the Blessed, the garden of the gods, the sources of the nectar and ambrosia on which the gods lived." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 23.) Nectar was probably a fermented intoxicating liquor, and ambrosia bread made from wheat. Soma was a kind of whiske

arranged upon plateaus, or in ravines lower down the mountain. These deities, including Zeus, were twelve in number: Zeus (or Jupiter), Hera (or Juno), Poseidon (or Neptune), Demeter (or Ceres), Apollo, Artemis (or Diana), Heph?stos (or Vulcan), Pallas Athena (or Minerva), Ares (or Mars)

signs of the zodiac, and worshipped in a certain month of the year. The Hindoos had twelve primal gods, "the Aditya." Moses erected twelve pillars at Sinai. The Mandan Indians celebrated the Flood with twelve typical characters, who danced

islands) were commonly placed in the remote west. They were ruled over by Chronos." (Ibid., p. 60.) Tartarus, the region of Hades, the gloomy home of the dead, was also located "under the mountains of an island in the midst of the ocean in the remote west." (Ibid.,

n the western boundary of the known world," "where the sun shone when it had ceased to shine on Greece," and where t

at the extreme limit of Africa. Atlas was said to have surrounded it on every side with high mo

he great plain of Atlantis, covered with fruit of every kind,

as slightly raised, so that the water might not run in and overflow the land." Another reminiscence of the surr

ith "a great Saturnian continent;" they were kings that ruled over countries

ertain islands in the Atlantic. Hyperion succeeded his father, and was then killed by the Titans. The kingdom was then divided between Atlas and Saturn-Atlas taking North

er God in his love of mankind placed over us the demons, who are a superior race, and they, with great care and pleasure to themselves and no less to us, taking care of us and giving us place and reverence and order

ronian Sea (the Atlantic), king of Atlantis, through civilized Atlantean governors, who by their wisdom preserved peace and cr

are still the gods of many barbarians, were the only gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes.... What shall follow the gods? Must not demons and heroes and men

ate has closed

oly demons

s of ills, guardia

good and noble men; he says we are of the 'age of iron.' He cal

t, a Golden Age, then a Silver Age-these constituting a great period of peace and happiness; then it reached a Bronze Age; th

erity and comfort, they denied the reverence they owed.... Then followed the Bronze Age, a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of violence. Instead of cultivated lands, and a life of peaceful occupations and orderly habits, there came a day when every where might was right, and men, big and powerful as they were, became physically worn out.... Finally came the Iron Age, in which enfeebled mankind had to

n of the relics of antiquity in Europe. And this identification of the land that was destroyed by a flood-the land of Chronos and Poseidon and Zeus-with the B

calion, and the Flood of Deucalion was the Flood of the Bible, and this, as we have shown

), "all were willingly pleased, all were well-happified." While the description given by Murray in the above extract of the degeneracy of mankind in the land of the gods, "a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of violence, when might was right," agrees with Plato's account of the Atlanteans, when they became "aggressive," "unable to bear their fortune," "unseemly," "base," "filled wit

the Greeks "Olumpos." The letter a in Atlantis was sounded by the ancient world broad and full, like the a in our words all or altar; in these words it approximates very closely to the sound of o. It is not far t

ar west, which was subsequently destroyed by a deluge on account of the wickedness of its people. And when we turn to Plato's description of Atlantis (p. 13, ante) we find that Poseidon

Macedonia and partly in Thessaly. But in Mysia, Lycia, Cyprus, and elsewhere there were mountains called Olympus; and on the plain of Olympia, in Elis, ther

he Hyperboreans, the Hesperides, and the Islands of the Blessed. Homer described the Atlantic region of Europe in his account of the wanderings of Ulysses.... In the ages previous to the decline of

t states along the shores of the Mediterranean from a vast antiquity, and which were regarded as the most precious possessions of the people. They were relics of the lost race received in the early ages. Thus we read of

on of the desert" (Napo-leon), and should thence argue that Napoleon never existed, that he was a myth, that he represented power in solitude, or some such stuff. When we read that Jove whipped his wife, and threw her son out of the window, the inference is that Jove was a man, and actually did something like the thing described; certainly gods, sublimated spirits, aerial sprites, do not act after this fashion; and it would puzzle the mythmakers to prove that the sun, moon, or stars whipped the

his symbol was the sky. He probably represented the race previous even to the settlement of Atlantis. He was a son of G?a

that the peculiarities ascribed to the last two refer to th

IRE OF

upon as the god of Olympus; that the sea and islands which fell to Neptune occasioned their giving him the title of 'god of the sea;' and that Spain, the extremity of the then known world, thought to be a very low country in respect of Asia, and famous for its excellent mines of gold and silver, failing to Pluto, occasioned him to be taken for the 'god of the infernal regions.'" We should suppose that Pluto possibly ruled over the transatlantic possessions of Atlantis in America, over those "portions of the opposite continent" which Plato tells us were dominated by Atlas and his posterity, and which, being far beyond or below sunset, were the "under-world" of the ancients; while Atlantis, the Canaries, etc., constitu

e, and several other provinces to the inmost recesses of Spain. To these Sanchoniathon seems to join Syria; and Diodorus adds a part of Africa, and the kingdoms of Mauritania." The k

says, in answer to a

d, nor of hi

, deities, fro

hea, earth's

ot our triple

to sways the

louds, and o'er

e extends hi

ath the hoary

roaring of th

book

udes to P

se liquid ar

whose earthquake

terior of Spain; Jupiter followed them up, and beat them for the last time near Tartessus,

re the children of Earth and Heaven, and from these sprung Phorcys, and Chronos, and Rhea, and many more with them; and from Chronos and Rhea sprung Zeus and Hera, and all those whom we know as their brethren, and others who were their children." In other words, all their gods came out of the ocean; they were rulers over some ocean realm; Chron

Homer, are strangely connected with the Atlantic Ocean. T

ll apa

easured deep,

ote of men;

with us.-Ody

Atlantis. The island of Calypso appears also to have been in the Atlantic Ocean, twenty days' sail from t

far confine

ms of Homer are Atlantean in their relations and inspiration. Ulysses's wander

d represented the frightful crashing of waves, and its resemblance to the convulsions of earthquakes." (Murray's "Mythology," p

hey were represented as having only one eye, which was placed at the juncture between the nose and brow. It was, however, a large, flas

oing ships, with a light burning at the prow, and armed with some explosive preparation, which, with a roar like thunder, and a flash like lightning, destroyed those against whom it was employed? It at least requires less strain upon

garded the ships of Columbus as living c

o and language was articulate and human, and a representation of him is preserved even unto this day. This being was accustomed to pass the day among men, but took no food at that season, and he gave them an insight into letters and arts of all kinds. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of t

ast and introduced the arts and sciences among them. And here we see the same tendency to represent the ship as a living thing

ixth child, Zeus, but that his wife Rhea deceived him with a stone image of the child; and Zeus was conveyed to the island of Crete, and there concealed in a cave and raised to manhood. Subsequently Chronos "yielded back to the light the children he had swallowed." This myth probably means that Chronos had his children raised in some secret place, where they could not be used by his enemies as the instruments of a rebellion against his thr

and many other arts then quite unknown to them; as, for example, how to tend and cultivate the vine. By such means he at length raised the people from a rude and comparatively barbarous condition to one of order and peaceful occupations, in consequence of which he was everywhere held in high esteem, and, in course of time, was selected by Janus to share with him th

ded to Italy; that they were a civilized, agricultural, and commercial people. The civ

ty and wealth were forgotten; no punishments for crime were inflicted; servants and slaves went about dressed in the clothes of their masters; and children received

engine overthrowing the rebels, the Titans, who rose against his power, amid the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder. He w

he father of the whole world; he everywhere rewarded uprightness, truth, faithfulness, and kindness; he was

d by Hermes, as excellent a meal as they could afford, and for this purpose were about to kill the only goose they had left, when Zeus interfered; for he was touched by their kindliness and genuine piety, and that all the more because he had observed among the other inhabitants of the district nothing but cruelty of disposition and a habit of reproaching and despising the gods. To punish this conduct he determined to visit the country with a flood, but to save from it Philemon and Baukis, the

ce to the Flood, and another

y VIII., and took to hi

ad Persephone (Proserpi

ione, Aphrodite (Venu

mes (Mercury); by Alkme

family of gods and go

ant

great weights attached to her feet-a very brutal and ungentlemanly trick-but the Greeks transposed this into a beautiful symbol: the two weights, they say, represent the earth and sea, "an illustration of how all the phenomena of the visible sky were supposed to hang dependent on the highest god of heaven!" (Ibid., p. 47.) Juno probably regarded the transaction in an al

worshipped in the island of Tenos "in the character of a physician," showing that he represented an advanced civilization. He was also master of an agricultural people; "the ram with the golden fleece for which the Argonauts sailed was the offspring of Poseidon." He carried in his hand a three-pronged symbol, the trident, doubtless an emblem of the three continents that were embraced in the empire of Atlantis. He founded many colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean; "he helped to build the walls of Troy;" the tradition thus tracing the Trojan civilization to an Atlant

billows until the earth shakes as they crash upon the shores.... He is also associated with well-watered plains and valleys." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 51.) The

N, OR N

he "well-watered plains and valleys" remind us o

he coming of civilizati

ant

rley, and sent him out to teach mankind how to sow and utilize that grain. Dionysos, grandson of Poseidon, travelled "through all the known world, even into the remotest parts of India, instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend

eved, to the councils of the Olympian gods; but they usually remained in their particular spheres, in secluded grottoes and peaceful valleys, occupied in spinning, weaving, bathing, singing sweet songs, dancing, sporting, or accompany

confirmed by the fact that part of them were called Atlantids, offspring of Atlantis. The Hesperides were also "daughters of Atlas;" their mot

ts to Atlantis, but also shows some kinship to t

e of the Hesperides, but they could not resist the temptation to pluck and eat its fruit; thereupon a serpe

a, in the remote west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules." Hercules took a ship, and after encountering a storm, reached the island and placed himself on Mount Abas. Hercules killed Geryon, stole the cattle, put them on the ship, and landed th

were simply barbarian recollections of the rulers of a great civilized people

fs of our proposition that the gods of

e makers, but the r

ought battles, the very sites of which are given; they founded ci

c," in the remote west.... where the sun sh

was destroye

led over by Pos

and Italy and the shores of Afri

e Bronze Age and at the b

ce, of a vast, mighty, and highly civilized empire, which in a rem