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14 ATLANTIS and art before Plato do not supply this in any unequivocal and reliable form. Certain hints or contributory items will be dealt with below, but they do not affect the character of the story as a whole nor tend to establish the reality of its main features. We do not need to ascribe to Plato all the fancy and invention in the story. The romancing may have been done in part by the priests of Sais or by Solon or by Dropides or by Critias; or pos- sibly all these may have contributed successive strata of fancy, crowned by Plato. Practically we have to treat the tale as beginning with him. Its circumstantiality and air of realism have sometimes been taken as credentials of accuracy; but they are not beyond the ordinary skill of a man of letters, and Plato was much more than equal to the task. SIGNIFICANT PASSAGES FROM THE TALE The Atlantis narrative has been so often translated and copied, at least as to its more significant parts, that one hesitates to quote again; but there are certain items to which attention should be drawn, and brief extracts are the best means of ef- fecting this. The following passages are from the Smithsonian translation of Termier's remarkable paper on Atlantis repro- duced by that institution. It differs verbally from the transla- tion by Dr. Jowett but not in the broader features. Of the two quotations the first is from the "Critias." It is briefer than the other, though forming part of a more elaborate and extended account of the island. Taking his appointed part in the dialogue, Critias says: According to the Egyptian tradition a common war arose 9,000 years ago between the nations on this side of the Pillars of Hercules and the nations coming from beyond. On one side it was Athens; on the other the Kings of Atlantis. We have already said that this island was larger than Asia and Africa, but that it became submerged following an earthquake and that its place is no longer met with except as a sand bar which stops navigators and renders the sea impassable. 4 Pierre Termier: Atlantis (transl. from Bull. I'Inst. Ocfanogr. No. 256, Monaco) , Ann. Rept. Smithsonian Instn. for 1915, Washington, D. C., pp. 219-234; reference on p. 222.