How the Arabs saved our knowledge from antiquity

In my post, The story around Alexander’s copy of the Iliad, I briefly mentioned how the Abbasid Caliphs in Persia largely contributed to preserving the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. 

A few years ago, my attention was drawn to the glory days of Baghdad around 1000 AD, a city built inside a circle surrounding the central Abbasid Palace, a symbol of power and unity. More amazing than its shape was the fact that its Caliphs invested in hiring scholars to translate ancient Greek documents into Arabic. 

[Baghdad under the early Caliphs. Attribution]

Baghdad was built along the Tigris River in 762 AD, as the residence of Caliph Al-Mansur, the founder of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasid Dynasty was named after the uncle of Prophet Muhammad. A Caliph was the title of the civil and religious leader of a Muslim state, seen as representing Allah on earth. 

Al-Mansur was the first Caliph to honor astrologers. The most famous astrologer was Mash’allah from Basra, who served the Caliphs from 762 to 809 AD. Al-Mansur was convinced that it was written in the stars that the Abbasids were the legitimate successors of the Persian Sassanid Empire. They had been in power from 224 until 651 AD, when they were conquered by the Muslims. Since astrology did not exist in Arabic, Al-Mansur needed to revert to Persian and Greek astrological texts. As a result, he needed these ancient texts to be translated into Arabic.

By 786 AD, Caliph Harun al-Rashid established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, which originally may have been a Library, where scholars from across the Muslim world would organize their translations. The idea caught on, and other centers flourished a few centuries later in Cordoba and Granada in Spain, as well as in Cairo, Egypt. 

In the western Roman world, we saw our ancient knowledge and know-how disappear into the dark Middle Ages soon after the Fall of Rome in 476 AD. In the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, however, the science of Antiquity survived despite the rise of Christianity. Constantine the Great had made it the official religion, renaming its capital Byzantium after himself, Constantinople.

When Islam entered the stage in the 7^th century AD, the Abbasid Caliphate, established in Damascus, was a serious competitor to Constantinople. In about 750 AD, the Caliphate was transferred from Damascus to Baghdad, meaning that the center of power moved east from a Greek-speaking region to a non-Greek-speaking area. Followed a series of wars between the Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire that lasted until the 11^th century. 

All that time, the knowledge from Antiquity flowed into Baghdad, where a vast translation project was set up, and top translators were highly rewarded in gold. They concentrated on matters like astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and even music theory. Aristotle was still held in high esteem, his works as well as his comments. Later translations included Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest, a mathematical and astronomical treatise on the motions of the stars and planets; Euclid's book on geometry; the medical works of Hippocrates and Galen; and Plato’s Republic and Laws. Many other ancient books were translated from Greek, Pahlavi, Neo-Persian, and Syriac into Arabic. 

Simultaneously with this translation movement, Islamic science developed, involving philosophers and scientists alike. A name that stands out is that of Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna (980-1037), the Father of Early Medicine, whose work was standard in Europe for centuries. Another figure was Al-Khwarizmi (780-860), the Father of Algebra, who introduced the algorithms.

By the mid-11^th century, the ideas of antiquity reached Europe in Arabic, traveling to Sicily and Muslim Spain. Over time, they had been enriched with the knowledge that the Caliphs in the Middle East had acquired and developed. We owe it to the Abbasids that the knowledge from classical antiquity reached Europe, where it was generally translated into Latin. 

The Abbasid Caliphate ended in 1258 when Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols. The city was looted and thoroughly destroyed. The invaders burned piles of books, including those that were held in the House of Wisdom. 

Without Baghdad and its western expansion, we would have remained stuck in the dark Middle Ages, and there would not have been a Renaissance. 

The story around Alexander’s copy of the Iliad

Throughout history, it transpires that Alexander liked to present himself as the new Achilles. His Companions jokingly said it was because he slept with Homer's Iliad under his pillow. 

Page from the Iliad found in Egypt, 
APM Amsterdam

This statement may be far-fetched, but Plutarch confirms that Alexander kept his copy of the Iliad in a jeweled casket. It was the king’s proud possession since the precious scrolls were given to him by his earlier teacher, Aristotle, who had commented on the script. 

Ironically, the luxurious box may have belonged to the Persian King Darius. After the Macedonians were victorious at the Battle of Issus, it fell into Alexander's hands, who considered it worthy to hold the scrolls of his beloved Iliad. 

What history does not provide is a detailed description of the box and what King Darius kept inside. 

It is everyone’s guess if the casket was made of wood and inlaid with precious stones, or perhaps made of gold with intricate decorations. 

As to its contents, it may well have held the translation of the ancient Persian Avesta, the sacred text of Zoroastrian belief written originally in Avestan, an old eastern Iranian language that dates back to 1400 BC. Zoroaster was the first to teach humanity the doctrines of Heaven and Hell, the Resurrection of the body, the Last Judgment, and Eternal Life. These principles spread among mankind to be picked up eventually by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Avesta must have been key to Darius’ ideology, and these ancient texts were his most prized possession. 

Zoroastrian Temple of Fire, Yazd, Iran

Nothing more is heard about Darius’ Avesta. I find it hard to believe that Alexander would have discarded these texts. The wrath of the gods was something to reckon with. Besides, he always respected people’s beliefs, and there is no reason to simply dispose of the Avesta. There were enough men in his entourage who understood and spoke Persian to recognize the content. Our history mentions Leonnatus by name when he visits the Persian Queen Mother in Issus to reassure her that her son, King Darius, was still alive, although not victorious. Alexander may well have given the Avesta texts to Queen Sisygambis, why not? 

However, some tales take a life of their own. In the first centuries of the Abbasid Empire in Persia (750-1258), it was believed that Alexander had stolen all the Persian books, which had to be translated back from Greek into Arabic to make them available to the Persians once again, who by now had adopted the Arabic script.

While in the West, the ancient world collapsed with the Fall of Rome in 476 AD, the knowledge of antiquity survived in the Eastern Roman Empire. The Abbasid Caliphs largely contributed to preserving the knowledge of the ancient Greeks.  Their work, except poetry and history, was translated initially into Syriac and later into Arabic as spoken at their court. As a result, the well-known works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and most of Aristotle’s oeuvre were saved.  Without the arduous efforts of their skilled translators, not even the Renaissance could have saved our Greek heritage. 

The Abbasid and Persian angle of perception of the facts was obviously different from ours, and led them to believe that Alexander had simply stolen the Persian books. Other sources argued that they were burned in Persepolis when Alexander set the Palace ablaze.

The Trojan War in the absence of Helen

Hector seated

The Trojan War, as recounted by Homer, is a beautiful love story of Paris and Helen set against the cruelty of war when Achilles dragged the dead body of Hector behind his chariot around the city. It is the kind of subject we can still recognize today. 

Recently, I had echoes of another version in which Helen never made it to Troy but stayed in Egypt instead. One of the sources was Herodotus’ book "Histories". 

At first, I dismissed the information, mostly because Homer’s account was so familiar. When Heinrich Schliemann discovered the walls of Troy and Priam’s gold treasury in the late 19^th century, the history of Troy and the Trojan War came back alive. 

Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus, is described as ‘The Father of History’. He was an intrepid traveler, very inquisitive about foreign lands and customs. He journeyed widely around the Mediterranean, as far south as Elephantine on the first cataract of the River Nile and as far north as the Black Sea. He visited southern Italy and eventually settled in Thurii on the Gulf of Taranto. He may well have spent time in Cyrene and even in Babylon. 

Herodotus

This Greek historian lived in the 5^th century BC (he died in 425 BC), roughly three hundred years after Homer. Both men relied on the world around them and on the sources that were available to them.

During his stay in Egypt, Herodotus spoke to the priests of the Temple of the “Foreign Aphrodite”, meaning Astarte. They said that Helen arrived in Egypt with Paris after a severe storm had blown their ship off course. The couple was brought before the pharaoh in Memphis, who condemned Paris for taking Helen away from her husband, whether by force or not, and seizing treasures from Sparta. He granted Paris three days to leave the country to return to Troy,  but he kept Helen in Memphis. 

Questioning the priests further, Herodotus was informed about the Trojan War as told to them directly by Helen's husband, Menelaus. 

What happened was that after the abduction of Helen, the Greeks sent their forces to support Menelaus. The Spartan king and his delegation were received at Troy’s Palace, where they demanded the return of Helen and the stolen treasures. The Trojans responded that neither Helen nor the treasure was in their possession, but was held in Egypt instead. Obviously, the Greeks refused to believe them and laid siege to Troy. They fought each other for ten years, and all that while Helen waited in Egypt. 

When Troy fell, and there was still no trace of Helen, Menelaus sailed to Memphis. After giving the pharaoh a true account of what had happened, he was reunited with Helen, 'having suffered no evil’, and the stolen treasure was restored. 

This looks like a happy ending, but it was not. Menelaus got cross because contrary winds pinned him down in Egypt for a long time. As an offering to the gods, he took two Egyptian children, whom he offered in sacrifice. This act of disrespect turned the friendship of the Egyptians into hatred. Menelaus was pursued but managed to escape to Libya with Helen and his ships. What happened afterwards, the priests did not know. 

Herodotus was not the only one to suggest that Helen never went to Troy but stayed in Egypt during the Trojan War. 

Euripides

There was Euripides, who in 412 BC wrote his play "Helen", in which Helen is taken to Egypt by the gods. The Helen who accompanied Paris to Troy was an eidolon, a spirit-image or likeness, cursed for her infidelity by the Greeks and Trojans alike. Meanwhile, the real Helen spent the ten-year siege of Troy in Egypt! 

It is noteworthy that Euripides was born ca. 480 BC, meaning that he was 55 years old when Herodotus died in 425 BC. He definitely must have known Herodotus’ travel history and the details of his encounters. Euripides may well have given his own twist to Herodotus’ tale of Troy. 

A similar eidolon image is introduced in Stesichorus' account. This lyric poet, who lived from around 630 to 555 BC, antedates both Herodotus and Euripides. The story goes that Stesichorus was blinded because he slandered Helen, but recovered his eyesight after writing her praise. 

Helen’s eidolon image may have been introduced by Homer or Hesiod, who reached his peak in popularity around 700 BC. 

In his "Histories", Herodotus believes that Homer knew of this eidolon version keeping the real Helen in Egypt, but that he decided not to use it, preferring the more epic poetry. 

Troy walls

Interpreting this ‘eidolon’ in today’s world is very difficult. We may think that Paris believed in ghosts since, according to this story, nobody in Troy had ‘seen’ Helen. It is clear that, in antiquity, the gods played an important role in daily life. Before the outbreak of the Trojan War, Paris had built a reputation for making fair decisions, away from outside influences. For that reason, he had been appointed by Zeus to choose which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful: Athena, Aphrodite, or Hera. He elected Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In return, Aphrodite brought Helen, the most beautiful mortal, into the life of Paris, and they fell in love. The fact that Helen was already married to Menelaus, king of Sparta, and had a daughter, Hermione, did not bother Aphrodite. To alleviate the pain of Paris being separated from his beloved Helen, the goddess introduced Helen's eidolon. 

That leaves me with Alexander cherishing the Iliad to the point of keeping it at his bedside. His copy had annotations made by Aristotle, which indicates that the Iliad was well studied and discussed by both men. It is unthinkable that Aristotle was not aware of  Helen’s eidolon substitute in Troy, and this goes for Alexander as well. However, I assume that Alexander’s fascination with the Iliad was mainly because of Achilles' heroics. 

Another Macedonian tomb

The large number of tombs that dot ancient Macedonia never ceases to amaze me. They do not immediately stand out, but driving around on local roads in the wider area of Pella and Vergina (ancient Aegae), they appear as solitary structures or ruins. Occasionally, their names are announced on promising road signs pointing you to mysterious sites. 

Most visitors flock to the Great Tumulus housing the Tomb of Philip II in Vergina, along with the Tomb of Persephone (based on her frescoed depiction on the wall), and the Tomb of the Prince, attributed to Alexander IV. 

[Picture of the Abduction of Persephone from The Maritime Explorer]

The large necropolis to the east of the city and the many tombs outside the ancient city walls are generally ignored. In this area, it is nearly impossible to miss other beautiful examples like the Rhomaios Tomb, the Tomb of Eurydice (Alexander’s grandmother), the Macedonian Tomb on the Bloukas Farm, or a series of tombs on the Bella Farm (see: There is more to Aegae than the Royal Palace and the Great Tumulus). These tombs are rarely open to the public.  

Excavations are still ongoing, and more than one thousand tombs have been uncovered at Pella alone since 2000. They often carry the names of Macedonian families, and many monuments still display their vivid original colors. 

Closer to Náousa  (some 50 kilometers east of Pella), the Tomb of the Judgment, the Tomb of the Palmettos, the Tomb of Lyson and Kallikles, and the neglected Tomb of Kinch are worth visiting if the opportunity arises (see: Alexander's schooling at Mieza. Visit of the surrounding area). These tombs are not always open to the public.

Earlier this year (2025), the Tomb of the Philosophers, situated in the eastern necropolis of Pella, made headlines. The burial chamber measures 4.40x1.95 meters and is three meters high. It dates from around 300 BC and shows frescoes of six unnamed philosophers that document the richness of Pella’s intellectual development and cultural life at the time, when philosophy and sciences were a common good. 

The frescoed figures, who gave their name to the burial site, call for our attention. The most intriguing picture is that of a man wearing a red himation (kind of mantle), holding a wooden rod, pointing at a celestial globe, indicating that he might be a philosopher interested in astronomy. The theme is likely influenced by Aristotle’s teachings and other works written by philosophers and poets living at the Macedonian Court of Antigonus II Gonatas in the 3rd century BC. 

On the wall to his right, a bearded man is studying a papyrus scroll. The left wall depicts another wreathed, bearded ‘philosopher’. Above them are scenes of horsemen and grave steles inspired by Homeric funeral games. 

Excavations have revealed that the grave was probably built for a family. It contained the remains of three individuals: a man in his forties, a woman in her thirties, and an infant. The presence of this elaborate decoration with symbolic elements indicates that the family belonged to the higher social elite of Pella. The man could well have been a scholar or an astronomer who cared for his family after their death. 

The tomb’s frescoes are of high quality, giving a telling insight into the personal identity and the cultural values of the deceased. What’s more, the elements testify to the vibrant intellectual and artistic level that was reached in Pella some one hundred years after the death of Alexander. 

[Pictures of the Philosopher's Tomb from the Teacher Curator]

Saving documents and books in antiquity

Nowadays, saving our documents and information on our computers is very obvious. Before the digital era, we relied on typewriters and printers to distribute our pamphlets, advertisements, letters, and books. 

It is hard to imagine that in antiquity nothing of the kind existed, but then the needs were entirely different. Public information, laws, decrees, and other important notices were inscribed on stone slabs or posted on walls in conspicuous places throughout the city, and eventually shared with other cities.  

Exchanging documents and letters over longer distances, as during Alexander’s campaigns, required writing on papyrus, a lightweight material that could be easily transported. His correspondence with Antipater, Olympias, Aristotle, Sisygambis, governors, and generals all over his ever-growing empire required an active exchange of news and information.

Eumenes and Callisthenes, serving as Alexander’s secretaries, must have been very busy and very organized. We tend to forget that they also kept copies of Alexander’s correspondence, official documents, and perhaps private letters as well. This becomes apparent when Eumenes’ tent went up in flames after a conflict that arose as Nearchus was preparing the fleet to sail the Southern Sea. 

Alexander had exhausted his own treasury and had to borrow money from his friends, including Eumenes, to finance Nearchus’ expedition. His secretary was to contribute 300 talents, but being stingy, he gave only 100 talents. Alexander did not accept Eumenes’ excuse that it was not without difficulty and decided to set his friend’s tent on fire. He expected Eumenes to rush his money out, and thus admit he had been lying. The plan went wrong, and the tent burned down entirely, leaving a clump of smelted gold and silver worth one thousand talents. In the process, Alexander’s archives were reduced to ashes. It is Plutarch who tells us that Alexander asked several governors and generals to send Eumenes copies of the papers that had been destroyed. This proves that Alexander did indeed keep a record of his correspondence! 

We so often read of papers and books that have only partially survived or are only known second-hand or not at all, except for the title. This situation is inherent to the mindset of the time and to the degradation of the natural support used (papyrus). 

Papyrus is a vegetal product and a very practical writing support, but it is also fragile. It has been calculated that papyrus documents had a lifespan of a maximum of one hundred years. This may have suited the needs at the time, but the chances of having them still around two thousand years later are very slim. 

Chances of survival were greater if there were many copies of a text, like, for instance, for theater plays. Yet, professional writers were expensive, and the costs were borne by the author. In Roman times, wealthy citizens could afford to have certain scrolls copied for their own use, but they would hardly survive after the Fall of the Roman Empire. 

Under exceptional conditions, some scrolls or bits of papyrus, however, reached us. The most telling example is the scrolls that survived the fire in Herculaneum after the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Only recently have we been able to decipher their content without having to unroll the brittle carbonized scrolls (see: Reading the papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum). 

Another situation developed in Egypt. The garbage dump in Oxyrhynchus that served as fuel to the local population in the 19^th century appeared to contain a huge amount of hitherto unknown papyrus texts ranging from the Ptolemaic era to the Muslim conquests in the 7^th century AD. The papyri consist of private letters and public documents, such as a variety of official correspondence, theater plays, records, sales, wills, and inventories. The deciphering of the papyri is ongoing, as only a handful of scholars are capable of recognizing where the bit of papyrus text belongs. 

When parchment was introduced in the 2^nd century BC, documents stood a better chance of survival, although even animal skins had their limits. However, parchment was extremely expensive to make. 

With the passage of time, interest and taste evolved and changed. Treatises, studies, analyses, and even books and poems went out of fashion and vanished altogether. 

As the writing supports were decaying, it is not surprising that documenting Alexander’s life is a nearly impossible task, despite the second-hand recordings by Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius, and Plutarch, who could still access some original documents (see: Eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s life).

[Top picture Derveni papyrus 340 BC, Thessaloniki Museum.
Bottom picture from Archaeology News, Digs & Discoveries] 

Aristotle/Alexander

No doubt, all fans and admirers of Alexander will look forward to attending this play at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. This is how Getty promotes 

Aristotle/Alexander:

When star philosopher Aristotle accepts the coveted position of court tutor for an adolescent Alexander the Great, an intellectual battle of wits between teacher and student collides with high stakes Hellenistic realpolitik bearing life and death consequences. Ancient Greece would never be the same.

Weekends through May 10th

8pm Saturdays; 3pm Sundays

Company of Angels Theater, Boyle Heights

Witness the world premiere of Aristotle/Alexander, a play workshopped at the Getty Villa Theater Lab in 2024. Chronicling the story of Aristotle and a young Alexander the Great’s intellectual battle of wits, Noho Arts describes the new play as “utterly sublime” and “disturbingly relevant.”

Written and directed by Alex Lyras.

*Code GETTY50 is valid for 50% off each ticket throughout the run.

Learn more and purchase tickets

Plato and Atlantis

Plato wrote 35 Dialogues but two of his late Dialogues, “Timaeus” and “Critias”, are quite unique as they relate the history of Egypt to around 9,000 years before his time! That is where and when Atlantis is mentioned. Timaeus was a philosopher and astronomer from Locris in southern Italy, and Critias was an Athenian politician. 

Atlantis is, was, and will be very controversial. Yet, Plato’s tale is all we have to go by. As in every story or legend, there is always a base for some truth. To bring the Athenians in contact with Atlantis sounds far searched, but there is hope for the skeptics. 

In February 2022, Sotirios Sofias of the National Technical University of Athens published a very revealing study on the matter under the title “Atlantis: A real continent and not fiction according to the dialogues Timaeus and Critias of Plato”, which I will try to summarize hereafter. The author has analyzed the original ancient Greek text as recorded by Plato to match it with Google Earth's screenshots - with surprising results. Please remember that Plato was a pupil of Socrates (see: Plato, more than a philosopher). 

Critias, during a meeting with Socrates, Timaeus, and Hermocrates (general of Syracuse), describes the visit of Solon of Athens to Egyptian priests around 600 BC. On this occasion, the priests honored Athens in all its glory including the city’s victory over the people of Atlantis. The Atlanteans, they continued, lived on an island beyond the Pillars of Heracles and had conquered all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean and many others in the Mediterranean Sea, including Egypt. Yet, all the countries revolted against the aggressive Atlanteans, led by the Athenians, who were victorious. Atlantis suddenly disappeared after a terrible natural catastrophe. 

Modern technology shed a new perspective on Atlantis when in 2009 Google Earth revealed the outlines of a submerged formation about 600 kilometers northwest of the Canary Islands. The main feature appears as a manmade grid, which matches Solon’s “square” or “plain”,  the capital Atlantis as recorded by Plato.

Studying these images, Sotirios Sofias found that all the measurements of Atlantis noted by Plato are consistent with those visible in the Google Earth pictures. The stunning underwater square, whose sides are 140 kilometers long, is divided by channels following a perfectly recognizable Hippodamian plan. The water from the surrounding mountains flowed through the city’s canals to serve its needs in fresh water and as a transportation system for the Atlanteans. 

This city and the island of Atlantis disappeared after a severe cataclysm, destroying Athens at the same time, and the city's glory was forgotten. The large island of Atlantis sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, five kilometers deep! 

After an in-depth study of Plato’s text, Sotirios Sofias established that Atlantis was sitting on a super volcano similar to Yellowstone National Park in the US including the same kind of hot springs and therapeutic sources. Both sites have more in common than one would imagine as Critias describes a landscape resembling modern Yellowstone's beauty. He praises the fertile soil of Atlantis with its abundance of trees, fruit plants, and the variety of tamed and wild animals that populated the island! The island was also known for its minerals like gold, silver, copper, tin, etc. The inhabitants of Atlantis did not know they lived on top of a volcano, very much as the people of Pompeii did not know that the mountain on their horizon was a volcano.

The global cataclysm mentioned by Critias was, in fact, the eruption of this supervolcano in combination with the violent rotation of the earth's axis. Plato attributes this event to a meteorite or comet (which he calls Phaethon) that hit the earth. It caused the destruction of Atlantis, Athens, and all the nearby coastal cities and islands. The Egyptian priests told Solon that their country was saved thanks to the Nile. This is how the ancient texts of Atlantis were spared for 9000 years! Solon’s notes on Atlantis survived and were passed on to Plato via his uncle Critias. 

Plato clearly mentioned that the city was protected on the North side by high mountains. Google Earth has indeed located three submerged mountains of 4,000-4,500 meters that have moved 75 degrees counter-clockwise after these violent forces of nature occurred, erasing the island from view and memory. 

Another controversial subject is the shape and size of Atlantis. Solon mentioned that the island was narrow and extended from the coast of Spain to the present-day Antilles. It included islands like the Azores, which are the mountain peaks of the submerged Atlantis mentioned above. Critias provides details stating that the island's eastern end was opposite the Pillars of Heracles (Gibraltar), at Gadiriki (modern Cadis in Spain).  At the opposite end, it almost automatically takes us to the Lesser and Greater Caribbean Antilles and the Americas. 

Based on the measurements of Critias as compared to the geographic layout of Google Earth, Atlantis had an elongated shape like a banana. It was 4,500 kilometers long and 760 kilometers wide in its center. The western end of the island was only 1,000 kilometers away from the coast of South America, i.e., the distance an ancient ship could cover in one week. 

This reminds me of the news that made headlines several years ago about artifacts of Phoenician origin discovered in South America. Highly improbable, it was thought, and the wildest speculations followed! Presently, in light of the shape and size of Atlantis, the find is not outlandish at all! Sailing from the Mediterranean across the Atlantic Ocean along the south coast of Atlantis was extremely convenient as the ships could stop at so many ports on their way! When Atlantis disappeared, this communication route vanished and all memory of this once so-powerful kingdom was erased at the same time. 

Now there is the story of Atlantis everybody is familiar with a series of successive circles around a central island. Based on Critias’ account, this central island had a diameter of 1,000 meters. It was surrounded by two circles of land and three of water. This is the location of the Palace of Atlantis. The ditch around the central island was connected with a 9,500-meter-long canal to the sea. The total diameter of these combined circles was 5,000 meters! Hard to imagine! 

The Palace of Atlantis was the residence of the Major King. Critias noted that it was of astonishing size: 200 meters wide and 200 meters long, standing 100 meters tall. It was bigger than St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Atlantis was divided into ten kingdoms, each with its own king, subordinate to the Major King, the direct descendant of Atlas, son of Poseidon, and founder of Atlantis. Solon said that the god was held in high esteem by the Atlanteans, as quoted by Critias: “They placed golden statues, the god (Poseidon) to be upright in his chariot, holding the reins of six winged horses, and this complex was so tall that it almost touched the top of the roof of the temple. Around him, seated on dolphins, there were a hundred Nereids along with innumerous other statues around, dedicated to exceptional individuals.” 

All the above takes me to Alexander, as I so often speculate about his knowledge of the world when he set out to conquer Asia. He, and his selected circle of friends, had been tutored by Aristotle, a pupil of Plato. In this light, history deserves to be rewritten. We should be aware that besides Alexander, all of his Companions and later generals and kings in their own right, were aware of a world much larger than we generally assume!

[All details with clear drawings and maps are made available by Sotirios Sofias in his study Atlantis: A real continent and not fiction according to the dialogues Timaeus and Critias of Plato]

Plato, more than a philosopher

Plato is a highly fascinating figure. Not only was he a student of Socrates, but he also taught Aristotle, who, in turn, passed his knowledge on to young Alexander. 

Plato, born in 427 BC, received the best education of his time. Although we know him mainly as a philosopher, he was educated in martial arts and horse riding, besides mathematics and music, painting, and drawing. 

When about the age of twenty, he encountered Socrates teaching on the Agora of Athens, and he realized that philosophy was a more worthy goal to pursue. 

Socrates hardly wrote anything down. We know him from Plato and Xenophon, who are not always in agreement. Socrates preferred talking, or rather asking questions, to the point of embarrassing and irritating his audience. 

Plato followed his master until the Athenians executed him on the charge of impiety in 399 BC. He then left Athens and traveled to other philosophical centers, such as Megara and Syracuse in Sicily, and later to Egypt and Cyrene. He became a student of Pythagoras, Euclid, and Heraclitus, and concentrated on the religion and metaphysics of Egypt. 

Before the Museum of Alexandria was founded, the center of knowledge was in Heliopolis, where priests studied philosophy, astronomy, and theology. Many Greeks, like Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, and Solon, consulted the Library that contained the history of Egypt going back thousands of years. For us, Egypt's ancient history is lost in the mists of time… How much was (still) available in Plato’s days? Probably far more than we can imagine. 

In the 380s BC, Plato returned to Athens, where he started the Academy. The philosopher educated his followers in a shrine of olive groves, sacred to the Greek hero Academos, and called it, therefore, Academia. Plato’s school would continue to thrive till the early 6^th century AD when it was shut down by Emperor Justinian. This Byzantine emperor was determined to erase paganism for good and impose Christianity instead to regain control over the Western Roman Empire. 

Plato is best known for his Dialogues and his Letters. He contributed hugely to our Western culture and religion, although few people realize his impact on monotheistic religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He was the first philosopher to mention and underscore the soul's immortality. For that reason, his work was not destroyed but accepted by the Christian religious leaders. Plato also stressed the importance of ‘objective truth’ in order to live well. 

As a result of the recent advanced imaging diagnostic techniques to read the carbonized papyri from Herculaneum (see: Reading the papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum), scholars have discovered more details about Plato’s life, of which very little is otherwise known. By virtually realigning the bits of burnt papyrus, they were able to restore the continuity of the text and obtain more information. 

The scroll revealed that Plato was sold into slavery on the island of Aegina, south of Athens, either in 404 BC when Sparta conquered the island, or in 399 BC upon the death of Socrates. It was previously and erroneously accepted that this event took place while he resided at the court of Dionysios of Syracuse in 387 BC. 

We also learned more about the final hours of Plato. While battling a fever, he listened to flute music played by a Thracian slave girl. He was still very lucid as he had the strength to criticize the girl’s lack of rhythm. A perfectionist to the end? 

Plato died in 348/347 BC, and it is now understood that he was buried in the garden of his Academia of Athens. This is very telling since the Academy is considered the world’s first university, which he founded next to the Mouseion. 

Deciphering the papyrus scrolls is a lengthy process that may well require many more years. Who knows what more we will learn?