Podcast episode
March 8, 2018
Episode 28: Christopher Gill on Plato’s Atlantis
Plato pretty much invented the genre of utopia, the literary creation of an imaginary place which doesn’t exist but expresses our hopes or fears. All of his imaginary lands are puzzling, but none more so than Atlantis, the long-lost mighty kingdom which fought against primordial Athens and was finally submerged by a catastrophic earthquake. Atlantis has had a fertile and sometimes febrile influence on the minds of later thinkers, and few know much of its origin in Plato’s dialogues Timæus and Critias. In this episode we draw on expert help in remedying this situation. Professor Christopher Gill has published widely in many different areas of ancient philosophy, including the best introduction to the text of the Atlantis story.
What was Plato getting at here? Why does he divide his narrative of the Atlantis myth into two sections? Why choose the rather problematic character of Critias as narrator? Why a giant island in the middle of the Atlantic? And what were all those Atlantean canals for? In this episode we ask these questions and more, and receive answers, many of which give rise to further questions (which may have been part of Plato’s intention). As Professor Gill says at the conclusion of this rich and complex interview, ‘One never knows with Plato’.
The discussion covers, among other points:
- The dialogic context of the Atlantis myth, and the way it is split between the dialogues Timæus and Critias,
- A possible reason for the absence of the philosopher rulers in Socrates’ paraphrase of the Republic in the Timæus,
- The backgrounds of the figures of Timæus, Critias, and Hermocrates in the dialogues,
- The strange story of periodic worldwide cataclysms which the Egyptian priests tell to Solon in the Timæus,
- The basic storyline of the Atlantis story in the Timæus contrasted with its presentation in the Critias,
- The contrasts drawn by Critias between primeval Athens and the vast Atlantean state.
Recommended Reading
- Brisson, L. (1995). ‘La Invención de la Atlántida’, Méthexis 8 : 167-74.
- Görgemans, H. (2000). ‘Wahrheit und Fiktion in Platons Atlantis-Erzählung’, Hermes 128 : 405-19.
- Gill, C. (1977). ‘The Genre of the Atlantis Story’, Classical Philology 72 : 287-304.
- Gill, C., 2017. Plato’s Atlantis Story: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.
- Jordan, P., 2001. The Atlantis Syndrome. Sutton, New York, NY.
- Tarrant, H. (2007). Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timæus. Volume I, Book 1: Proclus on the Socratic State and Atlantis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 60-84.
- Vidal-Naquet, P., 2007. The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato’s Myth. University of Exeter Press, Exeter, trans. J. Lloyd.
The number of modern works of Atlantean fantasy is truly staggering. One of the most influential of them, and one which spawned many a fanciful return to the lost continent, is Ignatius Donnely’s wonderful Atlantis: The Antediluvian World of 1882. The best history of the reception history of the Atlantis myth is Vidal-Naquet 2007, listed above.
[Addendum: There has been an in-depth critique of Professor Gill’s approach in this interview by Thorwald C. Franke, who describes himself as “a private researcher without academic degrees in ancient philosophy, philology, archaeology, or history. He considers Plato’s Atlantis a real place, located in the Mediterranean Sea around the year 1200 BC.” I include this here for those who might be interested in a take on the ‘Atlantis question’ from someone who does not feel that Plato made it all up, but is also very concerned to separate his thought on the matter from fantasy and from ‘pseudo-science’. Whether or not Franke succeeds in demonstrating his theories I leave to the interested reader, but I will say that the placement of this link here is by no means intended to subsume Franke’s work under the heading of Atlantean fantasy alluded to above; this is more like Atlantean theorising or speculative historical reconstruction.]
Saeeduddin Ahmed
September 17, 2020
Very interesting show. One thing that wasn’t clear to me fully was when Professor Gill mentioned the contrast of how Athens was portrayed by the character Critias in the dialogues Timæus and Critias, he talked about how in the first it was framed in a right-wing context (‘backward looking, conservative, and elitist’), but I wasn’t quite sure what the main contrast was in the framing in the second of the two dialogues. What is your sense of that? And then how does the dialogue “Laws” fit into this development of the concept?
Earl Fontainelle
September 23, 2020
Prof Gill responds:
‘I am assuming that, in Plato’s dialogues, characters and their speakers are presented in the light of the overall ‘drama’ and point presented in the specific dialogue. In the ‘Timaeus’, the character of Critias is presented, I think, in a way that reflects the character of the 5th cent oligarch of the same name and his ideal is a strongly conservative one. I think that he and Plato’s Socrates (whose interests are philosophical, not political) are rather at cross purposes. It is not clear he has really been attending to Socrates’s summary of the ideal state theory. In the ‘Critias’, after Timaeus’ lengthy account of the creation of the world, it seems to me there is rather more engagement with Socrates’ philosophical vision and the contrast between Athens and Atlantis has rather more ethical content and is less (thoughtlessly) ‘patriotic’ than the ‘Timaeus’ – version. This view is developed at length in the introduction to my book on Atlantis (‘The Atlantis Story’ text, translation and commentary) recently published by Liverpool University Press. A similar view is about the two-fold characterisation of Critias is put forward by Sarah Broadie, in her book ‘Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus-Critias, Oxford University press.
I was not assuming a developmental model to explain the characterisation of Platonic figures.
As regards Plato’s politics in general, unlike some readers, I see his dialogues as not fitting neatly into ancient political labels and as raising fundamental questions that run counter to existing political stances. This applies to Plato’s Republic, Laws, and Atlantis story (both texts).
But he may still allude to contemporary e.g. oligarchic stances, and does so with Critias in the ‘Timaeus’. I hope this helps. Of course, not everyone will agree with this view but I hope it may be of some interest.’
Saeeduddin Ahmed
September 24, 2020
Thanks for the response. I’ll take a look at Dr. Gill’s and Sarah Broadie’s books. What is your sense of why “Laws” is not a more widely discussed Platonic dialogue?
Earl Fontainelle
September 24, 2020
Saeeduddin,
I’ve wondered that myself. I am open to suggestions; I can’t figure it out. I guess it reflects modern tastes to some degree — the ancients read the Laws a lot (though I don’t know of any ancient commentaries on it, off the top of my head, while everyone commentated on the Republic in antiquity, so, again, maybe there was a preference back then as well).
There is a good new translation of the Laws into English by Malcolm Schofield (CUP 2016), which means at least someone is paying attention ….
Saeeduddin Ahmed
September 24, 2020
This is way outside my area, but just digging around: 1) Socrates isn’t mentioned in this dialog, 2) In IEP entry, it says “…the legal details, clunky prose, and lack of organization have drawn condemnation from both ancient and modern scholars”, “Plato took his most original idea to be that law should combine persuasion with compulsion” [I don’t know how one would know that, but interesting], and “Plato defends several positions that appear in tension with ideas expressed in his other works. Perhaps the largest difference is that the ideal city in the Laws is far more democratic than the ideal city in the Republic, and 3) there is this course [I always get suspicious when Leo Strauss comes up but he is very influential in some circles]….. https://wslamp70.s3.amazonaws.com/leostrauss/s3fs-public/Plato%2C%20Laws%20%281959%29_0.pdf