Plato’s story of Atlantis, an advanced civilization that sank into the ocean, has captured public imagination since ancient times. While its existence is unlikely, it remains a powerful cultural symbol and appears in various works of fiction.
Atlantis is an ancient island sunk in the ocean, according to the classical Greek philosopher Plato, who tells its story in his dialogues. While most people today believe the story is simply an allegory, the idea of a lost continent has captured the public imagination since the time of Plato. Atlantis is supposed to have been home to an advanced civilization that had conquered many nations before failing in the fight against Athens and collapsing into the ocean in an earthquake.
It is a matter of speculation whether the idea of Atlantis or a similar island predates Plato, as no earlier ancient sources are known. In the classical era, philosophers and historians were divided on whether or not history had any basis in fact. While some claimed to have evidence of the island’s existence, none of it was definitive. Some ancient era writers wrote their own stories of vanished utopias that seem to parody Plato’s tale.
In the Middle Ages, the story of Atlantis was largely forgotten, but it resurfaced during the Enlightenment when Francis Bacon used it as a symbol of utopia in his The New Atlantis (1626). Bacon’s account is similar to Plato’s, except that Bacon places the island in the Americas. At the end of the 19th century, the idea of the island as a real historical place regained popularity and many expeditions searched for evidence of its existence. Scholars have theorized a link between it and Mesoamerican cultures such as the Aztecs. Atlantis has often been described as a very advanced society, with technology surpassing that of the present, and it began to interest those in spiritualist circles.
Although Plato portrayed Atlantis as an imperfect society, the antithesis of the Athens ideal, the vanished island increasingly came to be interpreted as a pinnacle of culture and enlightenment in the modern era. While current understanding of plate tectonics has made the possibility of an actual place unlikely to say the least, the vanished continent remains a powerful cultural symbol. It often appears in science fiction and fantasy works of all kinds, from books and movies to video games and cartoons.
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