This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.
The story of Atlantis begins not in the depths of the ocean, but in the mind of one of history's greatest philosophers. Around 360 BCE, Plato penned two dialogues that would captivate human imagination for over two millennia: the Timaeus and the Critias. In these works, he introduced the world to a civilization so advanced, so powerful, and so utterly lost that it would become the archetype for every sunken city, every lost civilization, and every cautionary tale about hubris that followed.
According to Plato's account, Atlantis was an island nation located beyond the Pillars of Hercules, what we now know as the Strait of Gibraltar. This civilization, he claimed, existed nine thousand years before his own time, making it contemporary with the end of the last Ice Age. The Atlanteans, as Plato described them, were descendants of the god Poseidon, who had fallen in love with a mortal woman named Cleito. From their union came ten sons, who became the rulers of ten kingdoms within the Atlantean empire.
The capital city of Atlantis, according to Plato's detailed description, was a marvel of engineering and urban planning. Concentric circles of land and water surrounded a central island, connected by bridges and tunnels. The innermost circle housed the royal palace and the temple of Poseidon, covered in silver and gold. The city's walls were constructed of red, white, and black stone, quarried from beneath the island itself. Hot and cold springs provided water for elaborate baths and fountains, while a sophisticated system of canals facilitated trade and transportation throughout the empire.
