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"They are my own use
for my own purpose of the Atlantis
legend, but not based on special knowledge,
but on a special personal concern with this tradition of the
culture-bearing men of the Sea, which so profoundly affected the
imagination of peoples of
Europe
with westward-shores."
--Letter to Mrs.E.C. Ossen Drijver
, 5 January 1961
"I say this about
the 'heart', for I have what some might call an Atlantis complex.
Possibly inherited, though my parents died too young for me to know
such things about them and too young to transfer such thing by words.
Inherited from me (I suppose) by one only of my children, though I
did not know that about my son [Michael] until recently, and he did not
know it about me. I mean the
terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave,
towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields.
(I bequeathed it to Faramir.) I
don't think I have had it since I wrote the 'Downfall of Nùmenor' as the
last of the legends of the First and Second Age."
--Letter to W. H. Auden
, 7 June 1955
"This
legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled
me. In sleep I had the
dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet
sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands.
It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about
it. It always ends by
surrender, and I wake gasping out of deep water.
I used to draw it or write bad poems about it."
--Letter to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964
"Ah! Look! There is a chasm in the
midst of the Great
Seas
and the waters rush down into it in great confusion.
The ships of the Nùmenòreans are drowned in the abyss.
They are lost for ever. See
now the eagles of the Lords overshadow Nùmenor.
The mountain goes up to heaven inflame and vapour; the hills
totter, slide, and crumble: the land founders.
The glory has gone down into the deep waters.
Dark ships, dark ships flying into darkness!
The eagles pursue them. Wind
drives them, waves like hills moving.
All has passed away. Light
has departed!"
--The Notion Club Papers
The Atlantis myth had an obvious personal
meaning to Tolkien as the above quotations from his letters indicate. He
considered it a possible racial memory descended down though his family.
It also represented to him an embodiment of certain European longings.
Númenor represents Tolkien's practice of "astrick-reality" (to
invoke Shippey's concept) at its most advanced. Tolkien creates a myth to
explain the historical puzzle. But it also represented his profound
meditations on the nature of human evil and pride. How does a civilization
move from great cultural achievement to tyranny and final cataclysmic
destruction?
The Atlantis myth has its clear origins in
the works of Plato (see below), though speculation is often made as to
whether Plato's creation was original or based on earlier myths. The
Atlantis story was not well-known in the medieval period, but it arose
again in popular imagination in the Renaissance with works such as Francis
Bacon's The New Atlantis and the Jesuit natural scientist Athanasius Kircher's
famous map. While as far as I know no direct link has
been found between Tolkien's Númenor and late 19th and early 20th century
views of Atlantis, a number of parallels have been cited by others.
Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis: the Antediluvian World (1882) created
interest on both sides of the Atlantic, as did popular Helena Blavatsky's The
Secret Doctrine, a theosophist text that tied Atlantis to a number of
occult phenomena.
Donnelly argued that Atlantis represented a proto-race in the antediluvian
period, and also held that this culture was destroyed by a comet. The
interest in Crete or the volcanic isle of Thera as possible historic
sources for the Atlantis myth was popular in the 1930's, especially with
the work of K.T. Frost and Spyridon Marinatos. Nazi racial theories, such
as those of Julius Evola, held the Atlanteans to be a race of Nordic
supermen, and Alfred Rosenberg wrote of a "Nordic-Atlantean"
master race whose civilization was lost through inward corruption and
betrayal.
Christopher Tolkien has argued that his
father likely found the the story of the
fall of Númenor at least in part an implicit critique of the racialism
and nationalism of the Nazis:
From Elendil's words at the end of The Lost Road there emerges a sinister picture: the withdrawal of
the besotted and aging king from the public view, the unexplained
disappearance of people unpopular with the 'government', informers,
prisons, torture, secrecy, fear of the night; propaganda in the form of
the 'rewriting of history' (as exemplified by Herendil's words
concerning what was now said about Earendel, p. 66); the multiplication
of weapons of war, the purpose of which is concealed but guessed at; and
behind all the dreadful figure of Sauron, the real power, surveying the
whole land from the Mountain of Numenor. The teaching of Sauron has led
to the invention of ships of metal that traverse the seas without sails,
but which are hideous in the eyes of those who have not abandoned or
forgotten Tol-eressea; to the building of grim fortresses and unlovely
towers; and to missiles that pass with a noise like thunder to strike
their targets many miles away. Moreover, Numenor is seen by the young as
overpopulous, boring, 'over-known': "every tree and grass-blade is
counted", in Herendil's words; and this cause of discontent is
used, it seems, by Sauron to further the policy of "imperial"
expansion and ambition that he presses on the king. When at this time my
father reached back to the world of the first man to bear the name
"Elf- friend" he found there an image of what he most
condemned and feared in his own. (The Lost Road 84)
Tolkien ultimately created three versions
of the Númenor myth:
- The Fall of Númenor
(ca. 1936 with a late version before 1942)
- The Drowning of Andûnê (1946)
- Akallabêth (1948)
Likewise, he included significant portions of the myth in his incomplete
stories, The Lost Road (1936-37) and The Notion Club Papers
(1945-46). In these two portions we are allowed to enter the interior
world of the Faithful Elendil and Herendil. Tolkein wrote that while The
Fall of Númenor represented
an Elvish account of the events (and therefore perhaps the most
trustworthy in detail) and the The Drowning of Andûnê represented
a "Mannish" account with many errors, the Akallabêth text
was a Dúnedanic text and therefore "mixed." (By this did he then
mean that the text was "mixed" in its historical accuracy?) The
various versions suggest to us that Tolkien had begun to think of his
legendarium as just that, a collection of overlapping retellings of
important stories from various times and perspectives.
The myth in its various versions can be
divided into two broad parts: 1) The founding and gradual waning of Númenor;
2) the reign of the final corrupt king, the influence of Sauron, and the
final destruction of Andor.
Discussion Questions
- Trace the gradual downfall of Númenor.
What are the key changes in culture and attitude that cause the
failure of its culture?
- What is the purpose of the Ban? Why
should the Númenoreans respect it? Why do they not do so eventually?
- What shapes their relationship with
Middle-earth?
- How would you describe the Faithful?
- What is the character of Ar-Pharazôn?
Why does he succumb to Sauron?
- How does the myth resonate with varying
versions of the Atlantis myth?
- Does the myth also have biblical
resonances? Why or why not?
Plato, Timaeus (trans. Benjamin Jowett)
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our
histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour.
For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an
expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city
put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those
days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front
of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island
was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other
islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite
continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within
the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but
that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly
called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a
great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and
several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men
of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of
Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast
power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and
yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon,
your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength,
among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and
was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being
compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of
danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from
slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all
the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred
violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of
misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the
island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the
sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and
impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was
caused by the subsidence of the island.
Plato, Critas (trans. Benjamin Jowett)
Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum
of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken
place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who
dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on
the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and
to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were
commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island
greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an
earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from
hence to any part of the ocean.
. . . .
Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to warn you,
that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps hear Hellenic names
given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was
intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the
names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had
translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of
the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our
language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which
is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a
child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you
must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced. 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 differing in extent, and
made for themselves temples and instituted sacrifices. 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 describe.
Looking towards the sea, but 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, and 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. The maiden had already reached
womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her
and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, inclosed the hill
in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land
larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and
three of water, which he turned as with a lathe, each having its
circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could
get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself,
being a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the
centre island, bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth,
one of warm water and the other of cold, and making
every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat
and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and dividing the island
of Atlantis into ten portions, he gave to the first-born of the eldest
pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the
largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made
princes, and gave them rule over many men, and a large territory. And he
named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he named Atlas, and
after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic. To his twin
brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of
the island towards the Pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is
now called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name
which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country
which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the second pair of twins he called
one Ampheres, and the other Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of
twins he gave the name Mneseus, and Autochthon to the one who followed
him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder Elasippus, and the
younger Mestor. And of the fifth pair he gave to the elder the name of
Azaes, and to the younger that of Diaprepes. All these and their
descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers
islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held
sway in our direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt
and Tyrrhenia.
Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained the
kingdom, the eldest son handing it on to his eldest for many generations;
and they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by
kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were
furnished with everything which they needed, both in the city and country.
For because of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to
them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided most of what
was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place, they dug
out of the earth whatever was to be found there, solid as well as fusile,
and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name,
orichalcum, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island,
being more precious in those days than anything except gold. There was an
abundance of wood for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for
tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in
the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals,
both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for
those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal
which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant
things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or
essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and
thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the
dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for
food-we call them all by the common name pulse, and the fruits having a
hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of
chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are
fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with
which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating-all
these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought
forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the
earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their
temples and palaces and harbours and docks. And they arranged the whole
country in the following manner:
First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the
ancient metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the
very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the god and of
their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive
generations, every king surpassing the one who went before him to the
utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for
size and for beauty. And beginning from the sea they bored a canal of
three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia
in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a
passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbour, and leaving an
opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress.
Moreover, they divided at the bridges the zones of land which parted the
zones of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass
out of one zone into another, and they covered over the channels so as to
leave a way underneath for the ships; for the banks were
raised considerably above the water. Now the largest of the zones into
which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in
breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the
next two zones, the one of water, the other of land, were two stadia, and
the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width.
The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia.
All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a
stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on every side, placing
towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which
was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre island, and
from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One
kind was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried, they
at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed out of the
native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put
together different stones, varying the colour to please the eye, and to be
a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall, which went
round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the
circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which
encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum.
The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on this
wise:-in the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon,
which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold;
this was the spot where the family of the ten princes first saw the light,
and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in their
season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to each of the ten.
Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a
stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange barbaric
appearance. All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the
pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the
interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere
with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the
walls and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the
temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in
a chariot-the charioteer of six winged horses-and of such a size that he
touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a
hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number
of them by the men of those days. There were also in the interior of the
temple other images which had been dedicated by private persons. And
around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the
descendants of the ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other
great offerings of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city
itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an
altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this
magnificence, and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness
of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.
In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot
water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for
use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters. They
constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees, also they
made cisterns, some open to the heavens, others roofed over, to be used in
winter as warm baths; there were the kings' baths, and the baths of
private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for
women, and for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much
adornment as was suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to
the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful
height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the
remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along the bridges to the outer
circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods;
also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and others for horses
in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the
larger of the two there was set apart a race-course of a stadium in width,
and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race
in. Also there were guardhouses at intervals for the guards, the more
trusted of whom were appointed-to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was
nearer the Acropolis while the most trusted of all had houses given them
within the citadel, near the persons of the kings. The docks were full of
triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use. Enough
of the plan of the royal palace.
Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you came to a wall
which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant
fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed the whole, the
ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to the sea. The entire
area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest
of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts,
who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices,
and din and clatter of all sorts night and day.
I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace nearly in
the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to represent the nature and
arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him to
be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country
immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded
by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and
of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but
across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the
island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The
surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and
beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many wealthy
villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying
food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various
sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the
labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It 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 honours, 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
honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered
together they consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any
one 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 given 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 any one 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-affectioned 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 honourable
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 centre of the
world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together,
he spake as follows-* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been
lost.
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