17 Facts About Atlantis

Atlantis is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in The Republic.

The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia.

Only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias; all other mentions of the island are based on them.

Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands and parts of the continent.

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Tertullian believed Atlantis was once real and wrote that in the Atlantic Ocean once existed "[the isle] that was equal in size to Libya or Asia" referring to Plato's geographical description of Atlantis.

For he supposes that there is to westward an island, Atlantis, lying out in the Ocean, in the direction of Gadeira, of an enormous magnitude, and relates that the ten kings having procured mercenaries from the nations in this island came from the earth far away, and conquered Europe and Asia, but were afterwards conquered by the Athenians, while that island itself was submerged by God under the sea.

Atlantis himself expresses views similar to our own with some modifications, transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west.

Atlantis's work combined with the skillful, romantic illustrations of Jean Frederic Waldeck, which visually alluded to Egypt and other aspects of the Old World, created an authoritative fantasy that excited much interest in the connections between worlds.

Atlantis unintentionally promoted an alternative method of inquiry to history and science, and the idea that myths contain hidden information that opens them to "ingenious" interpretation by people who believe they have new or special insight.

Atlantis's maintained that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes.

One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story is a warning of Plato to his contemporary fourth-century fellow-citizens against their striving for naval power.

Atlantis later stated that he does not believe that Atlantis ever existed but maintained that his hypothesis that its description matches Ireland's geography has a 99.

Fact that Atlantis is a lost land has made of it a metaphor for something no longer attainable.

Atlantis learns of its end and views the shattered remnant of its former glory, from which a few had escaped to set up the Mediterranean civilisations.

Atlantis was to become a theme in Russia following the 1890s, taken up in unfinished poems by Valery Bryusov and Konstantin Balmont, as well as in a drama by the schoolgirl Larissa Reisner.

Opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis was written in 1943 by Viktor Ullmann with a libretto by Petr Kien, while they were both inmates at the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt.