Before we break out the scuba gear and the deep-sea submersible, let’s see what a few people through history have said about the place.  First of all, everybody that has ever been interested in Atlantis, at least those old enough whose interest looks past the Disney movies, knows about Plato and the dialogues with Timaeus and Critias.  But that’s not where the accounts of Atlantis start.  According to Critias, the Athenian lawgiver Solon was the source he quotes, and that he was told about Atlantis from an Egyptian priest named Sonchis.  Critias lived around 400 B.C.  In his narrative, he says about 9,000 years before him, that is about 9,400 B.C.; a war broke out between the Atlanteans and the people that lived in the land east of the Pillars of Hercules.  To most everyone, that is the Straits of Gibraltar.  That indicates that Atlantis had to have been there long enough for contention and strife to build up between them.  Probably at least a few hundred years.         A number of modern scholars think that Plato’s account of Atlantis is no more than a very vivid imagination.  Though some believe it could be based on, not so clear memories of the Thera eruption.  This doesn’t stop a few ancient philosophers, and geographers, as well as historians that believed that Atlantis was real.  Some of them were:      Crantor- philosopher, student of Xenocrates, student of Plato, tried to find proof of Atlantis’ existence.     Zoticus- 3^rd century A.D. Neoplatonist philosopher, epic poem based of Plato’s account of Atlantis.      Ammianus Marcellinus- 4^th century A.D. Historian, using a lost work by Tiagenese, a 1^st century B.C. historian wrote, the Druids of Gaul claimed that part of the people of Gaul migrated from distant islands. Some say that Ammianus’ writing has been considered to be a claim that people fled to Western Europe when Atlantis sunk.  But, Ammianus states that the Drasidae (Druids) claim that part of the people is indigenous but others came from islands and lands from the north and east to Gaul.       I feel the need to insert here that the migration of the people referred to as Druid, arrived in Gaul at the earliest between 700 to 650 B.C, if not a little later.  If some of the people did come from Atlantis, they would have arrived there possibly between 9400 B.C. and 7000 B.C., which means they could have been there at least 6500 years or maybe longer before the Druids arrived.  Which would make them indigenous by the time they got there.

     Marcellinus also wrote “the intelligentsia of Alexandria considered the destruction of Atlantis factual history.  

     Proclus- 5^th century commentator on the Timaeus, also reported that Crantor said he traveled to Egypt and saw the columns that Plato had seen the history of Atlantis written in hieroglyphics.  He also stated, commenting on the Timaeus, It gives a description of the geography of Atlantis.  This, he also said, existence is evidenced by certain authors investigated around the outer sea.  According to them, there were seven islands that were sacred to certain gods.  Among them Poseidon.  That was a very large island and the inhabitants of it had preserved the memory of their ancestors of the larger island that was immeasurable (Atlantis), that really existed for many ages and ruled over all the islands in the ocean, and that that island was also sacred to Poseidon.  This last part was also written about in Marcellus’ Aethiopica.     An ancient Greek festival Pallas Athene, dated from the time of king Theseus, was a procession to the Acropolis in which a peplos was carried to Athena, because she saved the city with victory over the people of Poseidon (Atlanteans).  Lewis Spence reports, this was a cult in existence 125 years before Plato.  That means he couldn’t have dreamed up the story himself.      Diodorus Siculus- historian, said that Atlanteans didn’t know the fruits of Ceres.  He also said the ancient Phoenicians and Etruscans knew of an enormous island outside the Pillars of Heracles.  He described the climate and part of the landscape.  Scylax of Caryanda gives a similar description.       Pausanias- called the island “Satyrides,” (Atlantes) and the people who claim to know the measurements of the earth.  He says that on the west side of the ocean is a group of islands on which the people have red skin and hair like a horse.  (A similar description by Christopher Columbus).       Theophrastus of Lesbos- talks about colonies of Atlantis in the sea.     Hesiod- said the garden of Hesperides was on an island in the sea where the sun sets.       Pliny the Elder- said this land was 12,000 km from C’adiz, and Uba, and a Numidan king wanted to make a stock farm of purple Murex there.     Theopompus of Chios- Greek historian, called the land beyond the ocean “Meropis”.       Cosmas Indicopleustes- Byzantine friar, May have understood Plato better than ancient or modern “Aristotellians”, according to Merezhkovsky.     In his Topographia Christiana, was contained a chart of the world (flat):  it displayed an inner continent, a compact mainland surrounded by sea, and this was surrounded by an outer ring-shaped continent, with the words, “The earth beyond the ocean, where men lived before the Flood”  The Garden of Eden is placed in the eastern end of this continent.