Plato’s Location of Atlantis
So much has been written about the possible location of Atlantis that it seems to be an almost fruitless task to present what Plato actually said. The problem is that various writers have placed Atlantis on every continent in the world as well as on every known island in the world. Many people have speculated that Atlantis must have been in the Mediterranean and assert that when Plato wrote that Atlantis was beyond the Straits of Gibraltar in the Atlantic Ocean he must have meant inside the Straits within the Mediterranean. Other fanciful speculations assert that his given location was just wrong or that he was referring to the Mediterranean as the “real ocean.” These speculations are simply wrong—they are not supported by any of the interpretations of Plato’s writings. A few people have claimed to make “new” translations of Plato where the word “beyond” really meant well into the Mediterranean, for example, in the Aegean Sea. A few clever people have written that “the pillars of Heracles” was really a reference to the narrow strait into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. The Black Sea would then be what Plato called the Atlantic Ocean. But no accepted translations support these views. The Pillars of Heracles was the Straits of Gibraltar leading from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.
The most telling descriptions of the location of Atlantis are scattered in several places in Timaeus and Critias. The location of the most important portion of Atlantis was provided early in Timaeus: “For it is related in our [Egyptian temple] records how once upon a time your State [Greece] stayed the course of a mighty host, which starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot.” (Timaeus 24 E)
The small phrase, “starting from a point distant in the Atlantic ocean,” is often ignored, especially by those who assert that Mediterranean islands or European areas were the location of Atlantis. But the phrase confirms that the war machine from Atlantis was not based in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Spain, or on a small island that was once just outside Gibraltar (see appendix). The center of the main political influence of Atlantis was at “a point distant in the Atlantic Ocean.” Precisely “how distant” into the Atlantic remains the critical question.
Timaeus (24 E; 25 A) also leaves no doubt that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean:
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For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in the mouth of what which you Greeks call, as you say, “the pillars of Heracles,” there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible, for travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean …
There should be no doubt that the location of Atlantis, as related by Plato, was some distance into the Atlantic Ocean. But the size and extent of Atlantis are more unclear. On the one hand, Plato reveals that the center of the Atlantis war empire was located at a distant point in the Atlantic. This may well imply that the capital of Atlantis was a considerable distance from the mouth of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, he speaks of multiple islands that can be hopped—island-to-island—until an enigmatic “opposite continent” is reached. These facts have led many to conclude that Plato was speaking of an island empire of many islands and that the chain of islands reached to the Americas. As with many of the revelations in Plato’s story of Atlantis, those who assert that the tale is fictional have no suitable explanation for Plato’s knowledge about an opposite continent.
Atlantis as an Island Empire
In Plato’s description of Atlantis, he identified the size of the “island” in several different places. These descriptions are somewhat incompatible with each other, especially if one only thinks of Atlantis as being a single, huge island. But Plato stressed that Atlantis was an “empire” comprised of many islands. And the influence of the Atlantis empire extended from a host of islands in the Atlantic to areas in the Mediterranean, including Egypt and Tuscany.
The major stumbling block in deciphering the size of Plato’s Atlantis comes in Timaeus (24 E), wherein he says, “in the mouth of … the pillars of Heracles … there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together …” Historians note that in Plato’s time Libya was the area of North Africa west of Egypt and Asia stretched from Egypt to India. In his classic book, Gateway to Atlantis, British scholar Andrew Collins pointed out that the island described by Plato in Timaeus would be larger than all of North America—an impossibly big island for the Atlantic. There is evidence that a small island once did exist in the “mouth of the Pillars of Heracles” (Gibraltar), but it was far too small to fulfill Plato’s descriptions. The solution to this seemingly impossible massive island comes in Plato’s other descriptions of Atlantis.
First, in several passages, Plato mentioned that Atlantis ruled many islands far into the Atlantic Ocean. As mentioned in the previous section, Plato related that the “opposite continent” could be reached by hopping from island to island. According to Plato, these islands were each governed by one of Poseidon’s five pairs of twin sons. “So all these, themselves and their descendants, dwelt for many generations bearing rule over many other islands throughout the sea …” (Critias 114 C) The eldest son, Atlas, who became the first king of Atlantis, was named after Atlantis and the Atlantic Ocean. Atlas’ twin brother was named Gaderius and was given reign over the portion of Atlantis just outside the Strait of Gibraltar. Plato also described how the empire of Atlantis, a confederation of kings each holding power over different portions of the main island and numerous other islands, came together during the war to conquer the entire Mediterranean. (Timaeus 25 A, B)
The solution to the impossibly large island Plato described in the Atlantic has been presented by Collins and many others. Plato had to be referring to the vast extent of the island empire as it stretched across the Atlantic. Since he gave great details concerning the rulers of the many islands of Atlantis, this idea is clearly the most logical. Those who have suggested that Atlantis was simply a small island near the European coast or a small portion of Spain simply ignore the portions of Plato’s texts discussing many islands and the idea that an “opposite continent” could be reached from the islands.
Regarding the physical size of the main island of Atlantis, Plato went into great detail, and the size he gives for that island is quite small in comparison to what would be “Libya and Asia” combined. Plato’s measurements were given in stadia, the supposed length of the first foot race in the Olympiad. One stade is believed by most scholars to be about 618 feet. He began by describing a circular city, located on the southern side of the main island, near the sea. This city was, according to Plato, about two miles in diameter. But the size of the island on which the center city was situated is described in detail:
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… the part about the city was all a smooth plain, enclosing it round about, and being itself encircled by mountains which stretched as far as to the sea; and this plain had a level surface and was a rectangle in shape, being 3000 stades long on either side and 2000 stades wide at its centre, reckoning upwards from the sea.
(Critias 118 A, B)
Based on this description in Critias, the main island which held the Center City was somewhere around 340 miles long and 225 miles wide. This is a large island, but nowhere near the size of Libya and Asia combined. Since the island empire of Atlantis began at the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar, there are only a few conclusions that are possible. First, if an island that was roughly 340 miles by 225 miles in extent did exist just outside Gibraltar and extending into the Atlantic Ocean, then the mystery would be solved except for the statements regarding many other