Archive 4466

Athens Before the Deluge According to Plato

by Stephanos Mytilinaos

[(We behave like) the Poseidonians in the                     

                                        Tyrrhenian Gulf, who although of Greek

                                        origin, became barbarized as Tyrrehenian

                                        or Romans and changed their speech and

                                        the customs of their ancestors. But they

                                        observe one Greek festival even to this

                                        day; during this they gather together and

                                        call up from memory their ancient names

                                        and customs, and then, lamenting loudly

                                        to each other and weeping, they go away.

Athenaios (fl. c. 200 A.D.) Deipnosophistai,

Book 14, 31A (632)]

A period of a high degree of development in the sciences and complete equality of the sexes.

Notwithstanding the fact that our knowledge pertaining to the universal Aegean (Pelasgian) pre-cataclysmic civilization ranges from limited to almost non-existent, and is even thought to be “mythical” by some, what follows is an attempt — supported mostly by relative documentation from Plato — to give a comprehensive picture of a civilization and an epoch that was effaced approximately 11,600 years ago. We wish to note that in order to shed the light of knowledge upon that “dark and unchartered” period, we’ve synthesized fragments from the works of the Hellene philosopher found in “Timaeus,” “Critias.” and “The Laws.”

Plato’s narrative contains assertions that what is said about this period is true and based on actual events (1). The philosopher is desirous of impressing upon the reader that real history is being related and not some myth with an allegorical significance only. We learn, as well, that [the Athenian statesman and lawgiver], Solon, had it in mind to write a pre-cataclysmic history, but was “forced to lay it aside owing to the seditions and all the other evils he found here on his return [from Egypt].” Critias comments that, had Solon written this history, “neither Hesiod nor Homer nor any other poet would ever have proved more famous than he”(2). Solon became the eponymous archon of Athens in 594 B.C. and immediately undertook the task of extricating his city from the myriad political and social woes in which it was embroiled. It was this arduous task that prevented him from writing his history of Hellas before the Great Deluge (A).

Why the Historical Data Escaped Destruction in Egypt

According to Plato’s text, an Egyptian priest explained to Solon that, because of the great destruction caused by the calamitous natural disasters that occurred in the distant past, civilization was destroyed many times over and had to proceed from the beginning each time (3). During all of these “disasters,” Egypt, because of its geographical position, was protected, in direct contrast to Greece, which always found itself in “the eye of the storm” (4).  This was the reason knowledge and learning were preserved in Egypt, whereas in Hellas, the destruction was total. The priest continues: “[W]hen, after the usual interval of years, like a plague, the flood from heaven comes sweeping down afresh upon your people, it leaves none of you but the unlettered and uncultured, so that you become young as ever, with no knowledge of all that happened in old times in this land or in your own. Certainly, the genealogies which you related just now, Solon, concerning the people of your country, are little better than children’s tales; for, in the first place, you remember but one deluge, though many had occurred previously.”

Immediately thereafter, in the same text, the Egyptian priest declares that the pre-cataclysmic ancestors of the Athenians were the noblest and the most cultured race on earth, and that their civilization was the most developed of that age:

                    [Y]ou are ignorant of the fact that the noblest and most perfect race amongst

                    men were born in the land where you now dwell, and from them both you

                    yourself are sprung and the whole of your existing city out of some little seed

                    that chanced to be left over; but this has escaped your notice because for

                    many generations the survivors died with no power to express themselves in

                    writing. For verily at one time, Solon, before the greatest destruction by

                    water, what is now the Athenian State was the bravest in war and supremely

                    well organized also in all other respects. It is said that it possessed the most

                    splendid works of art and the noblest polity of any nation under heaven of

                    which we have heard tell.

The political organization of pre-cataclysmic Athens

Naturally, these words were extremely moving to Solon, who asked the Egyptian priest to tell him more about the distant past. The priest was happy to comply and continued his narrative. He told Solon that the city of Saís [Port Said] on the Nile Delta was an Athenian pre-cataclysmic colony (5). According to the ancient archives of the Temple at Saïs, the city had been founded some 8000 years before Solon’s visit to Egypt in 595 B.C. These same Egyptian temple-archives — as attested to by the same priest — dated Athens to approximately 1000 years earlier, and his narrative relates to Athenians who lived 1000 years prior, that is circa 9600 B.C. Plato, in the “Timaeus,” writes about  how Solon, aside from merely hearing all of this from the priest, was able to see the actual texts having to do with pre-cataclysmic history, and which were kept in the Temple. Continuing, the priest told Solon about how the pre-cataclysmic city of Athens was politically organized: “To get a view of their laws, look at the laws here; for you will find existing here at the present time many examples of the laws which then existed in your city. You see, first, how the priestly class is separated off from the rest; next, the class of craftsmen, of which each sort works by itself without mixing with any other; then the classes of shepherds, hunters, and farmers, each distinct and separate. Moreover, the military class here, as no doubt you have noticed, is kept apart from all the other classes, being enjoined by the law to devote itself solely to the work of training for war”(6).

We find an analytical description of the social and political structures in pre-cataclysmic Athens in another of Plato’s dialogues, the “Critias,” considered to be a continuation of the “Timaeus.” (For the citations from the “Critias” which follow, see 110a – 112e.): “Now at that time there dwelt in this country not only the other classes of the citizens who were occupied in the handicrafts and in the raising of food from the soil, but also the military class, which had been separated off at the commencement by divine heroes and dwelt apart. It was supplied with all that was required for its sustenance and training, and none of its members possessed any private property, but they regarded all they had as the common property of all; and from the rest of the citizens they claimed to receive nothing beyond a sufficiency of sustenance; and they practiced all those pursuits which were mentioned yesterday, in the description of our proposed “Guardians.” Moreover, what was related [by the Egyptian priests] about our country was plausible and true, that, in the first place, it had its boundaries at that time marked off by the Isthmus on the inland side, reaching to the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes; and that the boundaries ran down with Oropia on the right, and on the seaward side they shut off the Asopus on the left.”

Another interesting and important piece of information we find in Plato is the fact that in pre-cataclysmic Athens there existed complete equality between men and women (7): “In this way, then, the names of the ancients … have been preserved. And for evidence of what I say I point to the statement of Solon, that the Egyptian priests, in describing the war of that period, mentioned most of those names — such as those of Cecrops, and Erechtheus and Erichthonius and Erysichthon and most of the other names which are recorded — and in like manner also the names of the women. Moreover, the habit and figure of the goddess indicate that in the case of all [beings], male and female … every species is naturally capable of practicing as a whole and in common its own proper excellence.” And elsewhere: “In this fashion, then, they [both men and women] dwelt, acting as guardians of their own citizens and as leaders, by their own consent, of the rest of the Greeks; and they watched carefully that their own numbers, of both men and women, who were neither too young nor too old to fight, should remain for all time as nearly as possible the same.”

The geomorphology of pre-cataclysmic Athens

Plato, in his “Critias,” does not neglect to provide us with a geographical description of pre-cataclysmic Athens and Attica: “[A]nd that all other lands were surpassed by ours in the goodness of soil, so that it was actually able at that period to support a large host which was exempt from the labors of husbandry. And of its goodness a strong proof is this: what is now left of our soil rivals any other in being all-productive and abundant in crops and rich in pasturage for all kinds of cattle; and at that period, in addition to their fine quality it produced these things in vast quantity. … Consequently, since many great convulsions took place during the 9000 years — for such was the number of years from that time to this — the soil which has kept breaking away from the high lands during these ages and these disasters (caused by the floods), forms no pile of sediment worth mentioning, as in other regions, but keeps sliding away ceaselessly and disappearing in the deep. … But at that epoch the country was unimpaired, and for its mountains it had high arable hills, and in place of the “moorlands” [fields of stony soil], as they are now called, it contained plains full of rich soil; … Such, then, was the natural condition of the rest of the country, and it was ornamented as you would expect from genuine husbandmen who made husbandry their sole task. … And as to the city, this is the way in which it was laid out at that time. In the first place, the acropolis, as it existed then, was different from what it is now. For as it is now, the action of a single night of extraordinary rain has crumbled it away and made it bare of soil. … But in its former extent, at an earlier period, it went down towards the Eridanus and the Ilissus [rivers], and embraced within it the Pnyx [hill]; and had the [hill of] Lycabettus as its boundary over against the Pnyx; and it was all rich in soil and, save for a small space, level on the top. And its outer parts, under its slopes, were inhabited by the craftsmen and by such of the husbandmen as had their farms close by; but on the topmost part, only the military class by itself had its dwellings round about the temple of Athena and Hephaestus, surrounding themselves with a single ring-fence, which formed, as it were, the enclosure of a single dwelling. On the northward side of it, they had established their public dwellings and winter mess-rooms. … As for the southward parts, when they vacated their gardens and gymnasia and mess-rooms as was natural in summer, they used them for these purposes (8).

Plato informs us that Attica was chosen in the pre-cataclysmic epoch by the Goddess Athena because it contained all that was needed for the development of beings destined to possess godlike characteristics. To be more precise, it was to be the birthplace of men and women who would resemble the goddess of wisdom and war herself. “[Athena took] this land of ours as being naturally congenial and adapted for virtue and for wisdom, and therein [she] planted as native to the soil men of virtue and ordained to their mind the mode of government. … So it was that these men, being themselves of the character described and always justly administering in some fashion both their own land and Hellas, were famous throughout all Europe and Asia both for their bodily beauty and for the perfection of their moral excellence, and were of all men then living the most renowned (9).

Pre-cataclysmic civilization was highly developed

In Plato’s “Timaeus,” we find direct references to the highly developed state of pre-cataclysmic Athens, not only in the fields of law and philosophy, but in the sciences and crafts as well: “It is said that it [Athens] possessed the most splendid works of art and the noblest polity of any nation under heaven of which we have heard tell. … Again, with regard to wisdom, you perceive, no doubt, the law here, — how much attention it has devoted from the very beginning to the Cosmic Order, by discovering all the effects which the divine causes produce upon human life, down to divination and the art of medicine which aims at health, and by its mastery also of all the other subsidiary studies. So when, at that time, the Goddess had furnished you, before all others, with all this orderly and regular system, she established your State, choosing the spot wherein you were born since she perceived therein a climate duly blended, and how that it would bring forth men of supreme wisdom.

Plato is saying here that, before the Great Flood, Athens had developed all of the skills that express the creativity and needs of human life. The arts of divination (with which mankind communicates with the Cosmic Order) and medical proficiency of the highest level. She had, in other words, reached the outer limits of knowledge in the arts and sciences. He repeats this assertion regarding the high degree of development in pre-cataclysmic Athens in the great work of his later years, The Laws. The conversation which follows is between two of the characters in this dialogue, Athenaios and Clinias (Leg. III. 677c.):

A:  “Shall we assume that the cities situated in the plains and near the sea were totally destroyed at the time [of the flood]?”

C:  “Let us assume it.”

A:  “And shall we say that all implements were lost and that everything in the way of important arts or inventions that they may have had, — whether concerned with politics or other sciences, — perished at that time? For supposing that things had remained all that time ordered just as they are now, how my good sir, could anything new have ever been invented?”

Plato leaves no room for doubt in this extract: If the inventions of the pre-cataclysmic period had not been lost, the succeeding generations would have had nothing to invent; implying, of course, that that civilization had reached the apogee of technological and cultural proficiency. He also gives, in this dialogue, an answer to those who have compartmentalized the history of mankind into periods called “Paleolithic,” “Neolithic,” “Bronze Age,” etc., etc., and describes to us what it was like during the years following the Deluge: “And because there were so few of them round about in those days [after the cataclysm], were they not delighted to see one another, but for the fact that means of transport, whereby they might visit one another by sea or land, had practically all perished along with the arts? Hence intercourse, I imagine, was not very easy. For iron and bronze and all the metals in the mines had been flooded and had disappeared; so that it was extremely difficult to extract fresh metal; and there was a dearth, in consequence, of felled timber. For even if there happened to be some few tools still left somewhere on the mountains, these were soon worn out, and they could not be replaced by others until men had rediscovered the are of metal-working. … And during all this period, or even longer, all the arts that require iron and bronze and all such metals must have remained in abeyance. … They were also well furnished with clothing and coverlets and houses, and with vessels for cooking and other kinds; for no iron is required for the arts of molding and weaving, which two arts God gave to men to furnish them with all these necessaries, in order that the human race might have the means of sprouting and increase whenever it should fall into such a state of distress” (11).          

According to Plato, the art of metallurgy and the use of metal was lost for a very long time. Mankind reverted to a barbarous state, and had to start over again, practically from the beginning.

———————————————————————————

Source. Davlos. May 2002 pp. 15875 – 15881. Platonic dialogue trans. by R.G. Bury, Litt. D. in Vols. IX, X, & XI of Loeb’s Plato. The balance of text translated by TGR staff is  ©

Author’s notes

1)   Ti. 20e & 26e.

2)   Ti. 21c.ff

3)   The following quotes are from Ti. 21e, 22b – 24 b-c.

4)   According to Plutarch, the priest who Solon encountered in Egypt was named Sonchis: “… the wisest of the Greeks … came to Egypt and consorted with the priests … [and] received instructions … [Solon] from Sonchis of Saïs…” (Plu. “Isis and Osiris,” 354e). This information is extremely important when one considers that Plato at no time mentions the name of the priest that Solon spoke with in Egypt; he simply refers to his profession. For Plutarch to actually name the priest, means that he had at his disposal facts which proved not only the journey to Egypt by Solon, but also verified what Plato wrote about the event in his “Timaeus.”

5)   Plato has this to say: “The chief city in this district is Saïs — the home of King Amasis  (B) — the founder of which, they say is a goddess whose Egyptian name is Neïth and in Greek, as they assert, Athena (C). These people profess to be great lovers of Athens and in a measure akin to our people here” (Ti. 21e). The kinship between the Athenians and their colony in Egypt is also attested to by Diodorus Siculus: “Likewise the Athenians, although they were the founders of the city in Egypt men call Saïs, suffered from the same ignorance because of the flood (V. 57. 5) (D).

6)   As to the chronology of Athens vs Egypt: “I begrudge you not the story, Solon; nay, I will tell it, both for your own sake and that of your city, and most of all for the sake of the Goddess who has adopted for her own both your land and this of ours, and has nurtured and trained them, — yours first by the space of a thousand years, when she received the seed of you from Gaèa and Hephaestus [i.e., earth and fire. ed.], and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization as set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed: the full account in precise order and detail we shall go through later at our leisure, taking the actual writings” (Ti. 23d-e, 24a. Also, for the comparison between the polity of Egypt and that of pre-cataclysmic Athens, see Ti. 24a-b.)

7)   Here Plato finds another opportunity to restate his fundamental belief in the equality of the sexes (found throughout his work, especially in “Laws” and “Timaeus”).

8)   Cr. 110c – 112c.

9)   Cr. 109c and 112e.

10)  Ti. 23c

11)  Leg. 678c – 679a.

Editor’s notes

1. A)   The period referred to here as “pre-cataclysmic” is obviously that prior to the Flood of Deucalion, thought to have occurred some 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. Deucalion (the Greek Noah) and his wife Pyrrha, were advised by Prometheus to build an ark (lárnax).In this manner they were saved and became the parents of Héllen (Éllin), the eponymous father of the Hellenes. Héllen was the father of Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus, from whom the three tribes of the Greeks — Dorians, Ionians, and Aeolians — are descended.
2. B)   Amasis is considered by some scholars to have been of Greek descent. What is conceded by all is that he was extremely philhellenic. (Herodotus. ii 169 ff.)
3. C)   Which fact, of course, was seized upon by the conniving and historically challenged Afrocentrists as “proof” that Athena was Black! How a Greek goddess, worshipped in a city in Egypt founded by the Greeks circa 8600 B.C., and called by the non-black Egyptians (before they began breeding with their slaves) by the name of Neïth, could be transmogrified into a Black deity by these modern-day dissembling “scholars” is totally illogical; but then again, logic is not one of the strong points of Afrocentrism.
4. D)   Diodorus Seculus had more to say. Particularly interesting are his comments regarding the much-vaunted “Phoenician alphabet.“Here is the entire quote: “But when at a later time there came a flood among the Greeks and the majority of mankind perished by reason of the abundance of rain, it came to pass that all written monuments were also destroyed in the same manner as mankind; and this is the reason why the Egyptians, seizing the favorable occasion, appropriated to themselves the knowledge of astrology, and why, since the Greeks, because of their ignorance, no longer laid any claim to writing, the belief prevailed that the Egyptians were the first men to effect the discovery of the stars. Likewise, the Athenians, although they were the founders of the city in Egypt men call Saïs, suffered from the same ignorance because of the flood. And it was because of reasons such as these that many generations later men supposed that Cadmus, the son of Agenor, had been the first to bring the letters from Phoenicia to Greece” (V. 57. 3-5.) (Emphasis added.)

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