The Antediluvian World

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beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It would be curious to inquire how far
the poems of Homer are Atlantean in their relations and inspiration.
Ulysses's wanderings were a prolonged struggle with Poseidon, the
founder and god of Atlantis.

"The Hekatoncheires, or Cetimaeni, beings each with a hundred hands,
were three in number--Kottos, Gyges or Gyes, and Briareus--and
represented the frightful crashing of waves, and its resemblance to the
convulsions of earthquakes." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 26.) Are not
these hundred arms the oars of the galleys, and the frightful crashing
of the waves their movements in the water?

"The Kyklopes also were three in number--Brontes, with his thunder;
Steropes, with his lightning; and Arges, with his stream of light. They
were represented as having only one eye, which was placed at the
juncture between the nose and brow. It was, however, a large, flashing
eye, as became beings who were personifications of the storm-cloud, with
its flashes of destructive lightning and peals of thunder."

We shall show hereafter that the invention of gunpowder dates back to
the days of the Phoenicians, and may have been derived by them from
Atlantis. It is not impossible that in this picture of the Kyklopes we
see a tradition of sea-going ships, with a light burning at the prow,
and armed with some explosive preparation, which, with a roar like
thunder, and a flash like lightning, destroyed those against whom it was
employed? It at least requires less strain upon our credulity to suppose
these monsters were a barbarian's memory of great ships than to believe
that human beings ever existed with a hundred arms, and with one eye in
the middle of the forehead, and giving out thunder and lightning.

The natives of the West India Islands regarded the ships of Columbus as
living creatures, and that their sails were wings.

Berosus tells us, speaking of the ancient days of Chaldea, "In the first
year there appeared, from that part of the Erythraean Sea which borders
upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, by name Oannes, whose
whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish;
that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below,
similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too
and language was articulate and human, and a representation of him is
preserved even unto this day. This being was accustomed to pass the day
among men, but took no food at that season, and he gave them an insight
into letters and arts of all kinds. He taught them to construct cities,
to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles
of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the
earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he
instructed them in everything which could tend to soften manners and
humanize their laws. From that time nothing material has been added by
way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun set, this
being, Oannes, retired again into the sea, and passed the night in the
deep, for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals
like Oannes."

This is clearly the tradition preserved by a barbarous people of the
great ships of a civilized nation, who colonized their coast and
introduced the arts and sciences among them. And here we see the same
tendency to represent the ship as a living thing, which converted the
war-vessels of the Atlanteans (the Kyklopes) into men with one blazing
eye in the middle of the forehead.

Uranos was deposed from the throne, and succeeded by his son Chronos. He
was called "the ripener, the harvest-god," and was probably identified
with the beginning of the Agricultural Period. He married his sister
Rhea, who bore him Pluto, Poseidon, Zeus, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. He
anticipated that his sons would dethrone him, as he had dethroned his
father, Uranos, and he swallowed his first five children, and would have
swallowed the sixth child, Zeus, but that his wife Rhea deceived him
with a stone image of the child; and Zeus was conveyed to the island of
Crete, and there concealed in a cave and raised to manhood. Subsequently
Chronos "yielded back to the light the children he had swallowed." This
myth probably means that Chronos had his children raised in some secret
place, where they could not be used by his enemies as the instruments of
a rebellion against his throne; and the stone image of Zeus, palmed off
upon him by Rhea, was probably some other child substituted for his own.
His precautions seem to have been wise; for as soon as the children
returned to the light they commenced a rebellion, and drove the old
gentleman from his throne. A rebellion of the Titans followed. The
struggle was a tremendous one, and seems to have been decided at last by
the use of gunpowder, as I shall show farther on.

We have seen Chronos identified with the Atlantic, called by the Romans
the "Chronian Sea." He was known to the Romans under the name of Saturn,
and ruled over "a great Saturnian continent" in the Western Ocean.
Saturn, or Chronos, came to Italy: he presented himself to the king,
Janus, "and proceeded to instruct the subjects of the latter in
agriculture, gardening, and many other arts then quite unknown to them;
as, for example, how to tend and cultivate the vine. By such means he at
length raised the people from a rude and comparatively barbarous
condition to one of order and peaceful occupations, in consequence of
which he was everywhere held in high esteem, and, in course of time, was
selected by Janus to share with him the government of the country, which
thereupon assumed the name of Saturnia--'a land of seed and fruit.' The
period of Saturn's government was sung in later days by poets as a happy
time, when sorrows were unknown, when innocence, freedom, and gladness
reigned throughout the land in such a degree as to deserve the title of
the Golden Age." (Murray's "Mythology," p. 32.)

All this accords with Plato's story. He tells us that the rule of the
Atlanteans extended to Italy; that they were a civilized, agricultural,
and commercial people. The civilization of Rome was therefore an
outgrowth directly from the civilization of Atlantis.

The Roman Saturnalia was a remembrance of the Atlantean colonization. It
was a period of joy and festivity; master and slave met as equals; the
distinctions of poverty and wealth were forgotten; no punishments for
crime were inflicted; servants and slaves went about dressed in the
clothes of their masters; and children received presents from their
parents or relatives. It was a time of jollity and mirth, a recollection
of the Golden Age. We find a reminiscence of it in the Roman "Carnival."

The third and last on the throne of the highest god was Zeus. We shall
see him, a little farther on, by the aid of some mysterious engine
overthrowing the rebels, the Titans, who rose against his power, amid
the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder. He was called "the
thunderer," and "the mighty thunderer." He was represented with
thunder-bolts in his hand and an eagle at his feet.

During the time of Zeus Atlantis seems to have reached its greatest
height of power. He was recognized as the father of the whole world; he
everywhere rewarded uprightness, truth, faithfulness, and kindness; he
was merciful to the poor, and punished the cruel. To illustrate his rule
on earth the following story is told:

"Philemon and Baukis, an aged couple of the poorer class, were living
peacefully and full of piety toward the gods in their cottage in
Phrygia, when Zeus, who often visited the earth, disguised, to inquire
into the behavior of men, paid a visit, in passing through Phrygia on
such a journey, to these poor old people, and was received by them very
kindly as a weary traveller, which he pretended to be. Bidding him
welcome to the house, they set about preparing for their guest, who was
accompanied by Hermes, as excellent a meal as they could afford, and for
this purpose were about to kill the only goose they had left, when Zeus
interfered; for he was touched by their kindliness and genuine piety,
and that all the more because he had observed among the other
inhabitants of the district nothing but cruelty of disposition and a
habit of reproaching and despising the gods. To punish this conduct he
determined to visit the country with a flood, but to save from it
Philemon and Baukis, the good aged couple, and to reward them in a
striking manner. To this end he revealed himself to them before opening
the gates of the great flood, transformed their poor cottage on the hill
into a splendid temple, installed the aged pair as his priest and
priestess, and granted their prayer that they might both die together.
When, after many years, death overtook them, they were changed into two
trees, that side by side in the neighborhood--an oak and a linden."
(Murray's "Mythology," p. 38.)

Here we have another reference to the Flood, and another identification
with Atlantis.

Zeus was a kind of Henry VIII., and took to himself a number of wives.
By Demeter (Ceres) he had Persephone (Proserpine); by Leto, Apollo and
Artemis (Diana); by Dione, Aphrodite (Venus); by Semele, Dionysos
(Bacchus); by Maia, Hermes (Mercury); by Alkmene, Hercules, etc., etc.

We have thus the whole family of gods and goddesses traced back to
Atlantis.

Hera, or Juno, was the first and principal wife of Zeus. There were
numerous conjugal rows between the royal pair, in which, say the poets,
Juno was generally to blame. She was naturally jealous of the other
wives of Zeus. Zeus on one occasion beat her, and threw her son
Hephaestos out of Olympus; on another occasion he hung her out of
Olympus with her arms tied and two great weights attached to her feet--a
very brutal and ungentlemanly trick--but the Greeks transposed this into
a beautiful symbol: the two weights, they say, represent the earth and
sea, "an illustration of how all the phenomena of the visible sky were
supposed to hang dependent on the highest god of heaven!" (Ibid., p.
47.) Juno probably regarded the transaction in an altogether different
light; and she therefore United with Poseidon, the king's brother, and
his daughter Athena, in a rebellion to put the old fellow in a
strait-jacket, "and would have succeeded had not Thetis brought to his
aid the sea-giant AEgaeon," probably a war-ship. She seems in the main,
however, to have been a good wife, and was the type of all the womanly
virtues.

Poseidon, the first king of Atlantis, according to Plato, was, according
to Greek mythology, a brother of Zeus, and a son of Chronos. In the
division of the kingdom he fell heir to the ocean and its islands, and
to the navigable rivers; in other words, he was king of a maritime and
commercial people. His symbol was the horse. "He was the first to train
and employ horses;" that is to say, his people first domesticated the
horse. This agrees with what Plato tells us of the importance attached
to the horse in Atlantis, and of the baths and race-courses provided for
him. He was worshipped in the island of Tenos "in the character of a
physician," showing that he represented an advanced civilization. He was
also master of an agricultural people; "the ram with the golden fleece
for which the Argonauts sailed was the offspring of Poseidon." He
carried in his hand a three-pronged symbol, the trident, doubtless an
emblem of the three continents that were embraced in the empire of
Atlantis. He founded many colonies along the shores of the
Mediterranean; "he helped to build the walls of Troy;" the tradition
thus tracing the Trojan civilization to an Atlantean source. He settled
Attica and founded Athens, named after his niece Athena, daughter of
Zeus, who had no mother, but had sprung from the head of Zeus, which
probably signified that her mother's name was not known--she was a
foundling. Athena caused the first olive-tree to grow on the Acropolis
of Athens, parent of all the olive-trees of Greece. Poseidon seems to
have had settlements at Corinth, AEgina, Naxos, and Delphi. Temples were
erected to his honor in nearly all the seaport towns Of Greece. He sent
a sea-monster, to wit, a slip, to ravage part of the Trojan territory.

In the "Iliad" Poseidon appears "as ruler of the sea, inhabiting a
brilliant palace in its depths, traversing its surface in a chariot, or
stirring the powerful billows until the earth shakes as they crash upon
the shores. . . . He is also associated with well-watered plains and
valleys." (Murray's "Mythology," p, 51.) The palace in the depths of the
sea was the palace upon Olympus in Atlantis; the traversing of the sea
referred to the movements of a mercantile race; the shaking of

POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE.

the earth was an association with earthquakes; the "well-watered plains
and valleys" remind us of the great plain of Atlantis described by Plato.

All the traditions of the coming of civilization into Europe point to
Atlantis.

For instance, Keleos, who lived at Eleusis, near Athens, hospitably
received Demeter, the Greek Ceres, the daughter of Poseidon, when she
landed; and in return she taught him the use of the plough, and
presented his son with the seed of barley, and sent him out to teach
mankind bow to sow and utilize that grain. Dionysos, grandson of
Poseidon, travelled "through all the known world, even into the remotest
parts of India, instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend the
vine, and how to practise many other arts of peace, besides teaching
them the value of just and honorable dealings." (Murray's "Mythology,"
p. 119.) The Greeks celebrated great festivals in his honor down to the
coming of Christianity.

"The Nymphs of Grecian mythology were a kind of middle beings between
the gods and men, communicating with both, loved and respected by both;
. . . living like the gods on ambrosia. In extraordinary cases they were
summoned, it was believed, to the councils of the Olympian gods; but
they usually remained in their particular spheres, in secluded grottoes
and peaceful valleys, occupied in spinning, weaving, bathing, singing
sweet songs, dancing, sporting, or accompanying deities who passed
through their territories--hunting with Artemis (Diana), rushing about
with Dionysos (Bacchus), making merry with Apollo or Hermes (Mercury),
but always in a hostile attitude toward the wanton and excited Satyrs."

The Nymphs were plainly the female inhabitants of Atlantis dwelling on
the plains, while the aristocracy lived on the higher lands. And this is
confirmed by the fact that part of them were called Atlantids, offspring
of Atlantis. The Hesperides were also "daughters of Atlas;" their mother
was Hesperis, a personification of "the region of the West." Their home
was "an island in the ocean," Off the north or west coast of Africa.

And here we find a tradition which not only points to Atlantis, but also
shows some kinship to the legend in Genesis of the tree and the serpent.

Titaea, "a goddess of the earth," gave Zeus a tree bearing golden apples
on it. This tree was put in the care of the Hesperides, but they could
not resist the temptation to pluck and eat its fruit; thereupon a
serpent named Ladon was put to watch the tree. Hercules slew the
serpent, and gave the apples to the Hesperides.

Heracles (Hercules), we have seen, was a son of Zeus, king of Atlantis.
One of his twelve labors (the tenth) was the carrying off the cattle of
Geryon. The meaning of Geryon is "the red glow of the sunset." He dwelt
on the island of "Erythea, in the remote west, beyond the Pillars of
Hercules." Hercules took a ship, and after encountering a storm, reached
the island and placed himself on Mount Abas. Hercules killed Geryon,
stole the cattle, put them on the ship, and landed them safely, driving
them "through Iberia, Gaul, and over the Alps down into Italy."
(Murray's "Mythology," p. 257.) This was simply the memory of a cattle
raid made by an uncivilized race upon the civilized, cattle-raising
people of Atlantis.

It is not necessary to pursue the study of the gods of Greece any
farther. They were simply barbarian recollections of the rulers of a
great civilized people who in early days visited their shores, and
brought with them the arts of peace.

Here then, in conclusion, are the proofs of our proposition that the
gods of Greece had been the kings of Atlantis:

1. They were not the makers, but the rulers of the world.

2. They were human in their attributes; they loved, sinned, and fought
battles, the very sites of which are given; they founded cities, and
civilized the people of the shores of the Mediterranean.

3. They dwelt upon an island in the Atlantic," in the remote west. . . .
where the sun shines after it has ceased to shine on Greece."

4. Their land was destroyed in a deluge.

5. They were ruled over by Poseidon and Atlas.

6. Their empire extended to Egypt and Italy and the shores of Africa,
precisely as stated by Plato.

7. They existed during the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron
Age.

The entire Greek mythology is the recollection, by a degenerate race, of
a vast, mighty, and highly civilized empire, which in a remote past
covered large parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.

CHAPTER III.

THE GODS OF THE PHOENICIANS ALSO KINGS OF ATLANTIS.

Not alone were the gods of the Greeks the deified kings of Atlantis, but
we find that the mythology of the Phoenicians was drawn from the same
source.

For instance, we find in the Phoenician cosmogony that the Titans
(Rephaim) derive their origin from the Phoenician gods Agrus and
Agrotus. This connects the Phoenicians with that island in the remote
west, in the midst of ocean, where, according to the Greeks, the Titans
dwelt.

According to Sanchoniathon, Ouranos was the son of Autochthon, and,
according to Plato, Autochthon was one of the ten kings of Atlantis. He
married his sister Ge. He is the Uranos of the Greeks, who was the son
of Gaea (the earth), whom he married. The Phoenicians tell us, "Ouranos
had by Ge four sons: Ilus (El), who is called Chronos, and Betylus
(Beth-El), and Dagon, which signifies bread-corn, and Atlas (Tammuz?)."
Here, again, we have the names of two other kings of Atlantis. These
four sons probably represented four races, the offspring of the earth.
The Greek Uranos was the father of Chronos, and the ancestor of Atlas.
The Phoenician god Ouranos had a great many other wives: his wife Ge was
jealous; they quarrelled, and he attempted to kill the children he had
by her. This is the legend which the Greeks told of Zeus and Juno. In
the Phoenician mythology Chronos raised a rebellion against Ouranos,
and, after a great battle, dethroned him. In the Greek legends it is
Zeus who attacks and overthrows his father, Chronos. Ouranos had a
daughter called Astarte (Ashtoreth), another called Rhea. "And Dagon,
after he had found out bread-corn and the plough, was called
Zeus-Arotrius."

We find also, in the Phoenician legends, mention made of Poseidon,
founder and king of Atlantis.

Chronos gave Attica to his daughter Athena, as in the Greek legends. In
a time of plague be sacrificed his son to Ouranos, and "circumcised
himself, and compelled his allies to do the same thing." It would thus
appear that this singular rite, practised as we have seen by the
Atlantidae of the Old and New Worlds, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians,
the Hebrews, the Ethiopians, the Mexicans, and the red men of America,
dates back, as we might have expected, to Atlantis.

"Chronos visits the different regions of the habitable world."

He gave Egypt as a kingdom to the god Taaut, who had invented the
alphabet. The Egyptians called him Thoth, and he was represented among
them as "the god of letters, the clerk of the under-world," bearing a
tablet, pen, and palm-branch.

This not only connects the Phoenicians with Atlantis, but shows the
relations of Egyptian civilization to both Atlantis and the Phoenicians.

There can be no doubt that the royal personages who formed the gods of
Greece were also the gods of the Phoenicians. We have seen the
Autochthon of Plato reappearing in the Autochthon of the Phoenicians;
the Atlas of Plato in the Atlas of the Phoenicians; the Poseidon of
Plato in the Poseidon of the Phoenicians; while the kings Mestor and
Mneseus of Plato are probably the gods Misor and Amynus of the
Phoenicians.

Sanchoniathon tells us, after narrating all the discoveries by which the
people advanced to civilization, that the Cabiri set down their records
of the past by the command of the god Taaut, "and they delivered them to
their successors and to foreigners, of whom one was Isiris (Osiris), the
inventor of the three letters, the brother of Chua, who is called the
first Phoenician." (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Ancient History of the
East," vol. ii., p. 228.)

This would show that the first Phoenician came long after this line of
the kings or gods, and that he was a foreigner, as compared with them;
and, therefore, that it could not have been the Phoenicians proper who
made the several inventions narrated by Sanchoniathon, but some other
race, from whom the Phoenicians might have been descended.

And in the delivery of their records to the foreigner Osiris, the god of
Egypt, we have another evidence that Egypt derived her civilization from
Atlantis.

Max Mueller says:

"The Semitic languages also are all varieties of one form of speech.
Though we do not know that primitive language from which the Semitic
dialects diverged, yet we know that at one time such language must have
existed. . . . We cannot derive Hebrew from Sanscrit, or Sanscrit from
Hebrew; but we can well understand bow both may have proceeded from one
common source. They are both channels supplied from one river, and they
carry, though not always on the surface, floating materials of language
which challenge comparison, and have already yielded satisfactory
results to careful analyzers." ("Outlines of Philosophy of History,"
vol. i., p. 475.)

There was an ancient tradition among the Persians that the Phoenicians
migrated from the shores of the Erythraean Sea, and this has been
supposed to mean the Persian Gulf; but there was a very old city of
Erythia, in utter ruin in the time of Strabo, which was built in some
ancient age, long before the founding of Gades, near the site of that
town, on the Atlantic coast of Spain. May not this town of Erythia have
given its name to the adjacent sea? And this may have been the
starting-point of the Phoenicians in their European migrations. It would
even appear that there was an island of Erythea. In the Greek mythology
the tenth labor of Hercules consisted in driving away the cattle of
Geryon, who lived in the island of Erythea, "an island somewhere in the
remote west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules." (Murray's "Mythology," p.
257.) Hercules stole the cattle from this remote oceanic island, and,
returning drove them "through Iberia, Gaul, over the Alps, and through
Italy." (Ibid.) It is probable that a people emigrating from the
Erythraean Sea, that is, from the Atlantic, first gave their name to a
town on the coast of Spain, and at a later date to the Persian Gulf--as
we have seen the name of York carried from England to the banks of the
Hudson, and then to the Arctic Circle.

The builders of the Central American cities are reported to have been a
bearded race. The Phoenicians, in common with the Indians, practised
human sacrifices to a great extent; they worshipped fire and water,
adopted the names of the animals whose skins they wore--that is to say,
they had the totemic system--telegraphed by means of fires, poisoned
their arrows, offered peace before beginning battle, and used drums.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 77.)

The extent of country covered by the commerce of the Phoenicians
represents to some degree the area of the old Atlantean Empire. Their
colonies and trading-posts extended east and west from the shores of the
Black Sea, through the Mediterranean to the west coast of Africa and of
Spain, and around to Ireland and England; while from north to south they
ranged from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf. They touched every point
where civilization in later ages made its appearance. Strabo estimated
that they had three hundred cities along the west coast of Africa. When
Columbus sailed to discover a new world, or re-discover an old one, he
took his departure from a Phoenician seaport, founded by that great race
two thousand five hundred years previously. This Atlantean sailor, with
his Phoenician features, sailing from an Atlantean port, simply
re-opened the path of commerce and colonization which had been closed
when Plato's island sunk in the sea. And it is a curious fact that
Columbus had the antediluvian world in his mind's eye even then, for
when he reached the mouth of the Orinoco he thought it was the river
Gihon, that flowed out of Paradise, and he wrote home to Spain, "There
are here great indications suggesting the proximity of the earthly
Paradise, for not only does it correspond in mathematical position with
the opinions of the holy and learned theologians, but all other signs
concur to make it probable."

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