Did Atlantis exist? Before the question, it is worth knowing where it comes from: the island was born in a dialogue of Plato, the Timaeus, and appears there in a few pages, told as an example. This article sticks to what the text wrote, and to what it leaves out.
Where Atlantis appears
The Timaeus opens with Socrates recalling a conversation from the day before, about what the ideal city would be like, very similar to the one in the Republic. He says he would like to see that city in motion, the way one who sees a painted animal wants to see it walk. Critias, one of the guests, answers with a story. The lawgiver Solon is said to have heard it, centuries earlier, from Egyptian priests (Timaeus, 20d-25d).
The story is that of an enormous island, beyond the Pillars of Heracles, as the Greeks called the Strait of Gibraltar. This island tried to dominate all the peoples of the sea, and it sank in a day and a night (24e-25d). Its name was Atlantis. In Plato, it is the adversary that ancient Athens would have faced, and that is how the island enters the book: as an example of a city in action.
Solon and the Greeks who are all children
Before telling of the island, the Egyptian priest, very old, says to Solon a phrase that became famous: the Greeks are all children, and there is no Greek who is old (22b). He means that the Greeks have no memory. Each catastrophe wiped out their history, and they began again from zero.
The phrase matters as much as the island. It says where the history comes from and how many hands it has passed through: from the priest to Solon, from Solon to Critias, and from Critias to the dialogue that Plato wrote.
What the Timaeus says, and what it does not say
The passage is short, and it is worth reading with the right ruler. The Timaeus says where the island was (beyond the Pillars of Heracles), what it wanted to do (dominate all the peoples of that sea), who faced it (ancient Athens), and how it ended (it sank in a day and a night). What it does not do is linger on the island, nor make it the subject of the book. The story serves as a backdrop for what comes next.
If you are looking for more detail, it is in another dialogue of Plato, the Critias, which continues the account. For the Timaeus, the essentials are enough: an enormous island, an ambition too big for it, and an end that fits in one sentence. The rest of the book turns to the sky, to time, and to the origin of the world.
Did it exist?
Here the answer must be stated without evasion. No archaeological evidence confirms Atlantis. What exists is Plato's text, and the text uses it as an example: Atlantis is told to show the ideal city in action, the ancient Athens facing a power that wants to dominate everyone. Within the dialogue, the story arrives as a tradition handed down, from priest to Solon, and from Solon to Critias. Outside it, we have no other source. That is why saying "Atlantis existed" or "Atlantis did not exist" goes beyond what the text allows: what can be affirmed is what it wrote, and the function the story serves within it.
The more useful question for anyone who opens the Timaeus may be another: why did Plato tell this? The book's answer is to give movement to the ideal city that Socrates had described. After that, Socrates hardly speaks again, and Timaeus, an astronomer, takes the word to tell the origin of everything. That is the part that fills the book, and the summary of the Timaeus follows it in the order in which it happens.
To keep
About Atlantis, what can be affirmed is what is in the Timaeus: an island beyond the Pillars of Heracles, told in a few pages as an example of a city in action. Whoever wants to know whether it existed outside the book finds only the book itself. And whoever wants to know what the Timaeus does after it will find, instead of legends, one of the most beautiful answers of Antiquity to the question of why there is a world, and not chaos. If that is the path, start with Did Plato believe in God? The Demiurge of the Timaeus.
The references 20d-25d, 22b and 24e-25d follow the Stephanus pagination, which serves to locate the passage in any edition of the Timaeus.
Readings from Nous
Read the classics in depth
Our list of more than 230 recommended books, commented and organized by theme, so you don't read in the dark.
See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
Which book talks about Atlantis?
Atlantis appears in two dialogues by Plato. It is born in the Timaeus, where it is presented in a few pages, and the story continues in the Critias. This article sticks to what the Timaeus wrote.
Who wrote about Atlantis?
Plato. It is in Plato that the island appears: in the Timaeus, in the words of Critias, who says he heard it from Solon, who in turn is said to have heard it from Egyptian priests.
Did Atlantis really exist?
No archaeological evidence confirms the island. What exists is Plato's text, which tells it as an example of a city in action: the ancient Athens that would have faced this island. The Timaeus does not need Atlantis to have existed in order to be read.
Where was Atlantis, according to Plato?
Beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which is what the Greeks called the Strait of Gibraltar. According to the account, the island tried to dominate the peoples of the Mediterranean and sank in a day and a night.
Continue: Plato's Timaeus: summary and how to read it · Did Plato believe in God? The Demiurge of the Timaeus · The School of Athens: what do the gestures mean? · What is Fides et Ratio
Source class: Timeu, de Platão