ATLANTIS

ATLANTIS, or ATLANTICA, in Antiquity an Island spoken of by Plato and other Writers, under some extraordinary Circumstances; and rendered famous by a Controversy among the Moderns about it.

The most distinct Account of this celebrated Place, is given us in Plato’s Timaeus, and Critias, which amounts, in a few Words, to what follows.—"The Atlantis was a large Island in the Western Ocean, situated before, or opposite to, the Straits of Gibraltar. Out of this Island there was an easy Passage into some others, which lay near a large Continent exceeding all Europe and Asia. Neptune settled in this Island, which he distributed among his ten Sons; to the youngest fell the extremity of the Island called Gadir, which in the Language of the Country signifies Eumedes, Fertile, or abundant in Sheep. The Descendants of Neptune reigned here from Father to Son, for a great Number of Generations, in the Order of Primogeniture. They also possessed several other Islands; and passing into Europe and Africa, subdued all Libya as far as Egypt, and all Europe to Asia Minor. At length the Island sank under Water; and for a long Time afterwards, the Sea thereabouts was full of Flats and Shelves." The learned Rudbeck Professor in the University of Upsal, in an express Treatise entitled, Atlantica sive Manheim, maintains, very strenuously, that Plato’s Atlantis is Sweden and attributes to his Country, whatever the Ancients have said of their Atlantis, or Atlantic Island.—After the little Abridgment we have given of Plato’s Account, the Reader will be surprised to find Sweden taken for the Atlantis; and accordingly though Rudbeck’s Work be full of uncommon Erudition, the Author passes for a Visionary in this Point.



Others will have America to be the Atlantis; and hence infer that the new World was not unknown to the Ancients: But what Plato says, does by no means quadrate thereto.—America should rather seem to be the vast Continent beyond the Atlantis, and the other Islands mentioned by Plato.

Becman, in his History of Islands, Cap. 5.

advances a much more probable Opinion than that of Rudbeck’s.—The Atlantis, according to him, was a large Island extended from the Canaries to the Azores; and these Islands are the Remains thereof not swallowed up by the Sea. The Atlantis took its Name from Atlas, Neptune’s eldest Son, who succeeded his Father in the Government thereof.

ATLANTIS