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This eruption happened in the 16th century BCE, so Plato was writing about it over 1000 years after it happened. I’m skeptical a story can be passed down that l
by alehlopeh 3y ago
This eruption happened in the 16th century BCE, so Plato was writing about it over 1000 years after it happened. I’m skeptical a story can be passed down that long through oral tradition without changes, so no surprise all the details don’t match up. I would even venture to say that since the focus of this discussion is “something someone once wrote down” and keeping in mind that “people can write down anything they want to” I would say it was completely invented as a thought experiment.
But I’ll also take that Plato could have used an existing folk tale describing that very event as the basis for a point he was trying to make. Especially if his audience was already familiar with said folk tale.
- macrolocal 3y agoNb. Plato claims Solon found written records of 'Atlantis' on a visit to Egypt, around 600 BC. That seems consistent with the Santorini hypothesis and Egyptian historians.
- inawarminister 3y agoWe know that Minoans were actively trading to Egypt by around 1600-1400BCE before they get suddenly replaced by Mycenaean Greeks, so there seems to be some support for that hypothesis...
- digging 3y ago> But I’ll also take that Plato could have used an existing folk tale describing that very event as the basis for a point he was trying to make. Seems reasonable as well. What comes to mind for me is a (Western?) tradition of writing fiction as if it were reality that takes place in a foreign land. Isn't that kind of a thing? Maybe my brain is extrapolating an untrue connection, if someone here with more literary experience needs to shoot this down that's ok.
- empath-nirvana 3y agoThis would be a reasonable thing to believe if plato didn't frequently make up tales like this as allegory out of whole cloth, including more than one example _in the same dialogue_ There are multiple examples of 'myth-like' stories whose only attestation is a platonic dialogue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_Er https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_Er here's another example.