Antediluvian world - страница 11

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.

Plato says that in Atlantis there was “a great and wonderful empire,”

which “aggressed wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia,” thus testifying to the extent of its dominion. It not only subjugated Africa as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Italy, but it ruled “as well over parts of the continent,” to wit, “the opposite continent” of America, “which surrounded the true ocean.” Those parts of America over which it ruled were, as we will show hereafter, Central America, Peru, and the Valley of the Mississippi, occupied by the “Mound Builders.”

Moreover, he tells us that “this vast power was gathered into one;” that is to say, from Egypt to Peru it was one consolidated empire. We will see hereafter that the legends of the Hindoos as to Deva Nahusha distinctly refer to this vast empire, which covered the whole of the known world.

Another corroboration of the truth of Plato’s narrative is found in the fact that upon the Azores black lava rocks, and rocks red and white in color, are now found. He says they built with white, red, and black stone. Sir C. Wyville Thomson describes a narrow neck of land between Fayal and Monte da Guia, called “Monte Queimada” (the burnt mountain), as follows: “It is formed partly of stratified tufa of a dark chocolate color, and partly of lumps of black lava, porous, and each with a large cavity in the centre, which must have been ejected as volcanic bombs in a glorious display of fireworks at some period beyond the records of Acorean history, but late in the geological annals of the island”

(“Voyage of the Challenger,” vol. ii., p. 24). He also describes immense walls of black volcanic rock in the island.

The plain of Atlantis, Plato tells us, “had been cultivated during many ages by many generations of kings.” If, as we believe, agriculture, the domestication of the horse, ox, sheep, goat, and bog, and the discovery or development of wheat, oats, rye, and barley originated in this region, then this language of Plato in reference to “the many ages, and the successive generations of kings,” accords with the great periods of time which were necessary to bring man from a savage to a civilized condition.

In the great ditch surrounding the whole land like a circle, and into which streams flowed down from the mountains, we probably see the original of the four rivers of Paradise, and the emblem of the cross surrounded by a circle, which, as we will show hereafter, was, from the earliest pre-Christian ages, accepted as the emblem of the Garden of Eden.

We know that Plato did not invent the name of Poseidon, for the worship of Poseidon was universal in the earliest ages of Europe; “Poseidon-worship seems to have been a peculiarity of all the colonies previous to the time of Sidon” (“Prehistoric Nations,” p. 148.) This worship “was carried to Spain, and to Northern Africa, but most abundantly to Italy, to many of the islands, and to the regions around the AEgean Sea; also to Thrace.” (Ibid., p. 155.) Poseidon, or Neptune, is represented in Greek mythology as a sea-god; but he is figured as standing in a war-chariot drawn by horses. The association of the horse (a land animal) with a sea-god is inexplicable, except with the light given by Plato. Poseidon was a sea-god because he ruled over a great land in the sea, and was the national god of a maritime people; he is associated with horses, because in Atlantis the horse was first domesticated; and, as Plato shows, the Atlanteans had great race-courses for the development of speed in horses; and Poseidon is represented as standing in a war-chariot, because doubtless wheeled vehicles were first invented by the same people who tamed the horse; and they transmitted these war-chariots to their descendants from Egypt to Britain. We know that horses were the favorite objects chosen for sacrifice to Poseidon by the nations of antiquity within the Historical Period; they were killed, and cast into the sea from high precipices.