Classical Writers Supporting Plato’s Story
Although many of the early writers are quoted as referring to Plato’s Atlantis or at least alluding to places or events that could be related to his story there is no writer who can be identified as providing clear independent evidence for Atlantis’ existence. One explanation could be that Atlantis may have been known by different names to different peoples in different ages, just as the Roman city of Aquisgranum was later known as Aachen to the Germans and concurrently as Aix-la-Chapelle to the French. However, it would have been quite different if the majority of post-Platonic writers had completely ignored or hotly disputed the veracity of Plato’s tale. H.S. Bellamy mentions that about 100 Atlantis references are to be found in post-Platonic classical literature.

• Homer (c.8^th Cent. BC) wrote in his famous Odyssey of a Phoenician island called Scheria that many writers have controversially identified as Atlantis. It could be argued that this is an example of different names being applied to the same location.
• Hesiod (c. 700 BC) wrote in his Theogony of the Hesperides located in the west. Some researchers have identified the Hesperides as Atlantis.
• Herodotus (c.484-420 BC) regarded by some as the greatest historian of the ancients, wrote about the mysterious island civilization in the Atlantic
• Thucydides (c.460-400 BC) refers to the dominance of the Minoan empire in the Aegean.
• Syrianus (died c. 437 BC) the neoplatonist considered Atlantis to be an historical fact. His views are recorded by
• Eumelos of Cyrene (c. 400 BC) was a historian and contemporary of Plato’s who placed Atlantis in the central Mediterranean between Libya and Sicily.
• Aristotle (384-322 BC) Plato’s pupil is constantly quoted in connection with his criticism of Plato’s story. However, it is Aristotle who states that the Phoenicians knew of a large island in the Atlantic known as ’Antilia’. Unfortunately Crantor’s confirmation of the Atlantis story came too late to influence Aristotle’s opinion.
• Crantor (4^th-3^rd cent. BC) was Plato’s first editor who reported visiting Egypt where he claimed to have seen a marble column carved with hieroglyphics about Atlantis.
• Theophrastus of Lesbos (370-287 BC) refers to colonies of Atlantis in the sea.
• Theopompos of Chios (born c. 380 BC), a Greek historian – wrote of the huge size of Atlantis and its cities of Machimum and Eusebius and a golden age free from disease and manual labour. Zhirov states [(1) p38/9) that Theopompos was considered a fabulist.
• Apollodorus of Athens (fl. 140 BC) who was a pupil of Aristarchusw of Samothrace (217-145 BC) wrote "Poseidon was very wrathful. and flooded the Thraisian plain and submerged Attica under sea-water"  Bibliotheca (III, 14.1) 
• Poseidonius (135 -51 BC) who was Cicero's teacher wrote "There were legends that beyond the Hercules Stones there was a huge area which was called "Poseidonis" or "Atlanta"
• Diodorus Siculus (1^stcent. BC), the Sicilian writer who has made a number of references to Atlantis.
• Marcellus (1^stcent. B.C.?) Ethiopic History quoted by Proclus [Zhirov p.40]
• Statius Sebosus (c. 50 BC), the Roman geographer, tells us that it was forty days’ sail from the Gorgades (the Cape Verdes) and the Hesperides (the Islands of the Ladies of the West, unquestionably the Caribbean – see Gateway to Atlantis).
• Timagenus (c 55 BC), a Greek historian wrote of the war between Atlantis and Europe and noted that some of the ancient tribes in France claimed it as their original home. There is some dispute about the French druids’ claim. 
• Philo of Alexandria (b.15 BC) also known as Philo Judaeus also accepted the reality of Atlantis’ existence.
• Strabo (67 BC- 23AD) in his Geographia stated that he fully agreed with Plato assertion that Atlantis was fact rather than fiction.
• Plutarch (46-119 AD) wrote about the lost continent in his book Lives (2 AD), wrote that both the Phoenicians and the Greeks had visited this island which lay on the west end of the Atlantic

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• Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD) is quoted by Frank Joseph as recording the existence of numerous sandbanks outside the Pillars of Hercules as late as 100 AD.

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• Pomponius Mela (c.100 AD), placed Atlantis in a southern temperate region.

• Tertullian (160-220 AD)

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• Claudius Aelian (170-235 AD) referred to Atlantis in his work The Nature of Animals.
• Arnobius (4^thcent. AD.), a Christian bishop, is frequently quoted as accepting the reality of Plato’s Atlantis.
• Ammianus Marcellinus (330-395 AD), the Greek historian, who wrote about the destruction of Atlantis as an accepted fact by the intelligentsia of Alexandria.
• Proclus Lycaeus (410-485 AD), a representative of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, recorded that there were several islands west of Europe. The inhabitants of these islands, he proceeds, remember a huge island that they all came from and which had been swallowed up by the sea. He also writes that the Greek philosopher Crantor saw the pillar with the hieroglyphic inscriptions, which told the story of Atlantis.
• Cosmas Indicopleustes (6^thcent. AD), a Byzantine geographer, in his Topographica Christiana (547 AD) quotes the Greek Historian, Timaeus (345-250 BC) who wrote of the ten kings of Chaldea [Zhirov p.40]

There is little discussion of Atlantis after the 6^th century until the Latin translation of Plato’s work by Marsilio Ficino was produced in the 15^th century.