Atlantis

Atlantis, the Priests of Sais and the Story Plato Called True

Atlantis appears first in two dialogues by Plato, the Timaeus and the Critias: an island beyond the Pillars of Heracles, larger than Libya and Asia together, that sank in a single day and night. Plato's speaker says the story came from priests at Sais in Egypt, through the Athenian lawgiver Solon. This investigation follows that chain, the readers who took it as history, the scholars who read it as Plato's invention, and what is still open.