Open Veils · Answer
What did plato say about the colonies of atlantis?
Plato's own text in Timaeus explicitly describes Atlantis as the seat of a confederate empire controlling not just the island but 'many other islands and parts of the continent' beyond the Atlantic — a colonial network, not merely a single island. Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson argue this colonial geography maps onto a pre-catastrophic Atlantic civilization. Robert Schoch notes the geological plausibility of land bridges and submerged landmasses that could correspond to Plato's 'other islands.' The colonial detail is the most consistently suppressed clause in popular retellings.
Evidence
- In Timaeus, Plato's Egyptian priest tells Solon directly: Atlantis 'held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent' on the far side of the Atlantic.
- In Critias, the ten kingdoms of Atlantis — the dynasties of Poseidon's sons — are assigned territorial divisions.
- Matthew LaCroix specifically highlights the passage where Atlantean dominion extended 'within the columns of Hercules' into Libya and Europe — meaning the colonies preceded the motherland's military campaign against Athens.
- Brien Foerster and Andrew Collins both point to Plato's orichalcum-laden Critias description as encoding genuine metallurgical memory — a detail too specific for pure allegory.
- The 'continent' passage — that travelers could cross from Atlantis to other islands and then to the continent beyond — is the most geographically explicit claim Plato makes, and it describes a transoceanic colonial relay, not a mythological flourish.