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Atlantis: what did Plato get wrong?


granpa

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I am not laying the blame for Athens "going to pot" at Solon's feet, kmt, I am only suggesting Solon's status as a 'legendary statesman' may be more propaganda than fact.

I agree that it was the fault of Athen's citizens that Solon's reforms failed, but my point is that his "10 year sabbatical" may have been an invention to remove Solon from this failure and so preserve his status as a 'legendary statesman' for those who admired him or wished him to be a figure of such status because that suited their own ends.

I agree with you on many points, especially about propaganda. The Greeks were highly adept at doing this: elevating their own while downplaying the person's weaknesses. In this regard I've never understood how Nikeas was given such station and responsibility in the Peloponnesian War. The man was clearly out of his depth and yet his fellow citizens seemed resolutely blind to the fact.

As far as Solon goes, the only explanation from contemporary sources of which I'm aware for the ten-year hiatus was that he wanted to remove himself so that he could not be influenced by either oligarchs or plebeians once the reforms were drafted. I've never read in the sources that Solon was supposed to enact the reforms himself.

And when you think about it, Solon's sabbatical makes a certain amount of sense when viewed from sixth-century BCE Athens. The Athenians were determined to avoid a tyranny as had happened at Corinth and numerous other poleis. Giving a leading man of the city the power to draft reforms was one thing: doubling his power by giving him the ability to have absolute control over their enactment is quite another. That way lay tyranny.

Not that it didn't happen anyway.

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  • 7 years later...

Sorry to bump this thread, but it seems to contain info on fi. Solon one doesn't read about in other threads about Atlantis.

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Sorry to bump this thread, but it seems to contain info on fi. Solon one doesn't read about in other threads about Atlantis.

Mmmmmm, the sweet smell of necro-posting.

Edited by Trelane
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Well, because of the recent Atlantitis pandemic, it seemed somewhat necessary, heh.

Edited by Abramelin
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1 minute ago, Abramelin said:

Well, because of the recent Altantitis pandemic, it seemed somewhat necessary, heh.

You just have to let it run out of gas. The people who flood the Atlantis threads don't care what information is provided, or if there are specific threads about their particular slant. They just wildly post nonsense regardless of topic. Come to think of it, that kind of applies to the pro-UFO/Alien visitation crowd as well.

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1 hour ago, Trelane said:

You just have to let it run out of gas. The people who flood the Atlantis threads don't care what information is provided, or if there are specific threads about their particular slant. They just wildly post nonsense regardless of topic. Come to think of it, that kind of applies to the pro-UFO/Alien visitation crowd as well.

High-volume subjects where they have little to no evidence so they throw a lot of meaningless stuff up to try and hide that deficit. You see that in discussions about Creationism, Giants and other low to no fact vehicles.

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