The probabilities of Plato’s story.

There is nothing improbable in this narrative, so far as it describes a great, rich, cultured, and educated people.  Almost every part of Plato’s story can be paralleled by descriptions of the people of Egypt or Peru; in fact, in some respects Plato’s account of Atlantis falls short of Herodotus’s description of the grandeur of Egypt, or Prescott’s picture of the wealth and civilization of Peru.  For instance, Prescott, in his “Conquest of Peru” (vol. i., p. 95), says: 

“The most renowned of the Peruvian temples, the pride of the capital and the wonder of the empire, was at Cuzco, where, under the munificence of successive sovereigns, it had become so enriched that it received the name of Coricancha, or ‘the Place of Gold.’ . . .  The interior of the temple was literally a mine of gold.  On the western wall was emblazoned a representation of the Deity, consisting of a human countenance looking forth from amid innumerable rays of light, which emanated from it in every direction, in the same manner as the sun is often personified with us.  The figure was engraved on a massive plate of gold, of enormous dimensions, thickly powdered with emeralds and precious stones. . . .  The walls and ceilings were everywhere incrusted with golden ornaments; every part of the interior of the temple glowed with burnished plates and studs of the precious metal; the cornices were of the same material.”

There are in Plato’s narrative no marvels; no myths; no tales of gods, gorgons, hobgoblins, or giants.  It is a plain and reasonable history of a people who built temples, ships, and canals; who lived by agriculture and commerce:  who in pursuit of trade, reached out to all the countries around them.  The early history of most nations begins with gods and demons, while here we have nothing of the kind; we see an immigrant enter the country, marry one of the native women, and settle down; in time a great nation grows up around him.  It reminds one of the information given by the Egyptian priests to Herodotus.  “During the space of eleven thousand three hundred and fort years they assert,” says Herodotus, “that no divinity has appeared in human shape, . . . they absolutely denied the possibility of a human being’s descent from a god.”  If Plato had sought to draw from his imagination a wonderful and pleasing story, we should not have had so plain and reasonable a narrative.  He would have given us a history like the legends of Greek mythology, full of the adventures of gods and goddesses, nymphs, fauns, and satyrs.

Neither is there any evidence on the face of this history that Plato sought to convey in it a moral or political lesson, in the guise of a fable, as did Bacon in the “New Atlantis,” and More in the “Kingdom of Nowhere.”  There is no ideal republic delineated here.  It is a straightforward, reasonable history of a people ruled over by their kings, living and progressing as other nations have lived and progressed since their day.