Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
The foregoing description of the Golden Age of Chronos, when "men were
rich and lived in plenty," reminds us of Plato's description of the
happy age of Atlantis, when "men despised everything but virtue, not
caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the
possession of gold and other property;" a time when, as the chants of
the Delaware Indians stated it (page 109, ante), "all were willingly
pleased, all were well-happified." While the description given by Murray
in the above extract of the degeneracy of mankind in the land of the
gods, "a period of constant quarrelling and deeds of violence, when
might was right," agrees with Plato's account of the Atlanteans, when
they became "aggressive," "unable to bear their fortune," "unseemly,"
"base," "filled with unrighteous avarice and power,"--and "in a most
wretched state." And here again I might quote from the chant of the
Delaware Indians--"they became troubled, hating each other; both were
fighting, both were spoiling, both were never peaceful." And in all
three instances the gods punished the depravity of mankind by a great
deluge. Can all these precise coincidences be the result of accident?
May we not even suppose that the very word "Olympus" is a transformation
from "Atlantis" in accordance with the laws that regulate the changes of
letters of the same class into each other? Olympus was written by the
Greeks "Olumpos." The letter a in Atlantis was sounded by the ancient
world broad and full, like the a in our words all or altar; in these
words it approximates very closely to the sound of o. It is not far to
go to convert Otlontis into Oluntos, and this into Olumpos. We may,
therefore, suppose that when the Greeks said that their gods dwelt in
"Olympus," it was the same as if they said that they dwelt in "Atlantis."
Nearly all the gods of Greece are connected with Atlantis. We have seen
the twelve principal gods all dwelling on the mountain of Olympus, in
the midst of an island in the ocean in the far west, which was
subsequently destroyed by a deluge on account of the wickedness of its
people. And when we turn to Plato's description of Atlantis (p. 13,
ante) we find that Poseidon and Atlas dwelt upon a mountain in the midst
of the island; and on this mountain were their magnificent temples and
palaces, where they lived, separated by great walls from their subjects.
It may be urged that Mount Olympus could not have referred to any
mountain in Atlantis, because the Greeks gave that name to a group of
mountains partly in Macedonia and partly in Thessaly. But in Mysia,
Lycia, Cyprus, and elsewhere there were mountains called Olympus; and on
the plain of Olympia, in Elis, there was an eminence bearing the same
designation. There is a natural tendency among uncivilized peoples to
give a "local habitation" to every general tradition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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