RP317 The City Lost Under the Sea

 RP317 The City Lost Under the Sea

When Plato wrote in 360 B.C. about an advanced island society named Atlantis, he probably had no idea that his words would become such a historical mystery. Even today, over 2,000 years after his dialogues were originally written, we are still trying to discover whether Atlantis is fact or fiction.
Plato described an island empire that was rich in resources and military power. He also mentioned that Atlantis was once allies with Athens, the city where Plato is thought to have been born. In the end, Atlantis betrayed Athens and launched an invasion against its former ally. Its attempt failed, and afterward the island of Atlantis suffered a series of natural catastrophes that caused it to be "swallowed by the sea."
Some people believe that there's no mystery at all. Plato was just using Atlantis as a metaphor to teach his readers a moral lesson. Their argument is supported by two important pieces of evidence. First, Plato was known to use metaphors frequently in his writing. Secondly, Plato claimed that these events occurred in 9000 B.C. Back then, Athens was probably just a handful of people sitting around campfires, if it was anything at all.
Others believe that Plato's Atlantis was actually an analogy describing the downfall of a totally different Greek island called Thera (present-day Santorini). Sometime around 1500 B.C., one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the history of human civilization occurred. It destroyed Thera and most of the Minoan civilization along with it. Supporters of this theory shrug off the 9000 B.C. date that Plato recorded; maybe he was just tired that day and added an extra zero by mistake.
Finally, there's a group of people who believe that Plato's account of Atlantis is the literal truth. For them, the ruins of this advanced island civilization are somewhere at the bottom of the sea just waiting to be discovered. What's more, finding them won't be easy. While most people who believe in Atlantis place it somewhere in or around the Mediterranean Sea, others claim that it's in the Atlantic Ocean or the North Sea off the coast of Sweden. That's quite a large area to search.