{"id":3795,"date":"2010-06-10T14:19:26","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T14:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/pre-platonic-references\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:04:26","slug":"pre-platonic-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/pre-platonic-references\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Platonic References"},"content":{"rendered":"

P<\/strong>re<\/strong>–<\/strong>P<\/strong>latonic<\/strong> R<\/strong>eferences<\/strong> to Atlantis are rare but this should not be surprising. First of all Atlantis is probably a Hellenised version of another name given to Solon<\/a> by the priests of Sais<\/a>. It is perfectly understandable\u00a0for an individual state and its people would have a number of unrelated names, some of which can have a colloquial or even derogatory origin.<\/p>\n

A good example of this today is the land where \u2019Dutch\u2019 people come from has been known variously as \u2018The Low Countries\u2019, \u2019Holland\u2019 or \u2019The Netherlands\u2019. My own country has been known as \u2018Ireland\u2018, \u2018Erin\u2018 and \u2018Hibernia\u2019 and its people are often referred to as \u2019Celtic\u2019, \u2019Irish\u2019 \u2019Paddys\u2019 in Britain or \u2019Micks\u2019 in America.<\/p>\n

Consequently, we should consider the name \u2019Atlantis\u2019 as a possible invention of Plato\u2019s and seek out pre-Platonic references through the descriptions used rather than by any name utilised by Plato.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Atlantis is probably just a ‘name of convenience\u2019, applied to the alliance of a number of independent states, many of which were\u00a0individually known previously\u00a0by other names to the Greeks through trade. After all, if the Atlanteans were situated close enough to trade, they were close enough to invade.<\/p>\n

J. Warren Wells<\/a>[783<\/u><\/a>.13]<\/sup> has pointed out that the word Atlantis was used by Hesiod in line 938 of his Theogony<\/a>, centuries before both Plato and Solon, while Hellanicus<\/a> of Lesbos certainly used the term before Plato. The earliest suggestion of Hellanicus offering a possible pre-Platonic mention of Atlantis was voiced by J.V. Luce<\/a> in his contribution to Edwin Ramage’s <\/a>Atlantis : Fact or Fiction<\/em>[0522<\/a>.72]<\/sup><\/p>\n

However, P. Rodriguez Cantos, having reviewed the similarities and differences between details in the two sources, offers a more critical interpretation of the brief excerpts available from Hellanicus(b)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

A collection of pre-Platonic references to Atlantis which do not directly use its name has been compiled by R.Cedric Leonard<\/a>(a)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(a) <\/sup>http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20191018225228\/https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-2055\/<\/a><\/p>\n

(b)<\/sup> Hellanicus of\u00a0 Lesbos’ Atlantis\/La Atlantida de Helanico de Lesbos (foroactivo.com)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pre–Platonic References to Atlantis are rare but this should not be surprising. First of all Atlantis is probably a Hellenised version of another name given to Solon by the priests of Sais. It is perfectly understandable\u00a0for an individual state and its people would have a number of unrelated names, some of which can have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[2946,910,122,1116,514,5419,201],"class_list":["post-3795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-edwin-ramage","tag-hellanicus","tag-hesiod","tag-j-warren-wells","tag-j-v-luce","tag-pre-platonic","tag-r-cedric-leonard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3795"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68085,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions\/68085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}