Critias
line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of
this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such
extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial.
Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth
of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was
carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in
length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and
winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into
the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet
in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the
ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred
stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the
city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse
passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year
they gathered the fruits of the earth--in winter having the benefit of
the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by
introducing streams from the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader
for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was
a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots
was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of
the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which was
distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to
their districts and villages. The leader was required to furnish for the
war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten
thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a pair of
chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could
fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood
behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound
to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, two slingers, three
stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were light-armed, and four
sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was
the military order of the royal city--the order of the other nine
governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several
differences.
As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the
first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had
the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws,
punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence
among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands
of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the
first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the
middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were
gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus
giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they
were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and
enquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment,
and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another
on this wise:--There were bulls who had the range of the temple of
Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they
had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which
was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons, but with
staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the
pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon
the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there
was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When
therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had
burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood
for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after
having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in
golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they
would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him
who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future
they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on
the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who
commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their
father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them offered up
for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and
dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and
after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came
on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most
beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the
embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all
the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of
them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they had
given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden
tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.
There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about
the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not
to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the
rescue if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the
royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common
about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of
Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any
of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten.
Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of
Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the
following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as
the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws,
and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they
possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with
wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one
another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their
present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold
and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were
they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their
self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods
are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too
great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with
them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine
nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among
them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted
too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature
got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune,
behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased,
for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those
who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and
blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous
power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to
see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful
plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might
be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy
habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds
all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as
follows--[*]
* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.