“‘Many and great exploits of your state, therefore, are here recorded, and call forth our admiration; nevertheless, there is one in particular, which in magnitude and heroism surpasses them all. For these records relate that your state once checked the advance of a mighty force which threatened all Europe and Asia, moving upon them from the Atlantic Ocean. For at that time this ocean was navigable; and beyond the strait [that of Gibraltar], which you in your language call the Pillars of Hercules, was an island larger than Libya [Africa] and Asia put together.[8] At that time sea-faring men could pass from it to the other islands, and from them to the opposite continent, which extended along the real ocean. For the sea [the Mediterranean] inside the strait, which we have already mentioned, is like a bay with a narrow entrance, but the other sea is rightly called an ocean, and the land, which entirely surrounds it, may truly and correctly be called a continent. In this large Atlantic island a mighty and wonderful confederacy of kings was formed, which subdued the whole island and many other islands and parts of the continent. Besides this it extended its rule, on our side, over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.[9] At that time the united forces of this power undertook to crush at one blow both your country and ours, and all the other countries lying within the strait.’”[10] “‘In the beginning the gods divided the whole earth, here and there, into large and small portions, that they might obtain temples and sacrifices. In this way Poseidon received as his portion the Atlantic island, and begat children by a mortal woman (ἐκ θνητῆς γυναικὸς), and placed them on a part of the island which we are about to describe.’”[11] Incredible as this information concerning the residence of a person possessing a divine nature on the earth and his matrimonial relationship with a woman seems to be, there are some remarkable statements in the traditions of the ancients respecting celestial beings dwelling among men, and, by marriage with their daughters, being the progenitors of an illustrious offspring. The Hebrew patriarchs, it is said, had personal communications with angels, at different times and places. It is related that three, in human form, partook of food given them by Abraham, under a tree, in the plain of Mamre.[12] Herodotus was told, by certain Egyptians, that “gods had been the rulers of Egypt and had dwelt among men; and that one of them always had the supreme power.”[13] Moses, “who was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” describing the people of the antediluvian world, writes: