Discussing the mysteries of the ancient world

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

3 hours ago, atalante said:

Jaylemurph,

Several ditto-heads, by liking your post, revealed their misunderstanding of literature.

Plato's Atlantis theme can be summarized as  -  Atlas and his brothers (see Crit 114a,b,c) oppose (see Crit 121c) the pantheon of Olympian deities.

This was a variation on a well known Greek theme.  The variation format is sometimes called Euhemerism, although in this instance it could be called Platonism.  

One poster, by virtue of ranting at clouds, revealed their misunderstanding of allegory. 
 

Plato’s Atlantis theme can be summarised as - don’t get bigger than your boot Athenians or else there’ll be a smiting.

[jaylemurph]

28 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

One poster, by virtue of ranting at clouds, revealed their misunderstanding of allegory. 
 

Plato’s Atlantis theme can be summarised as - don’t get bigger than your boot Athenians or else there’ll be a smiting.

There was — Sicilian Smiting.

—Jaylemurph 

[kmt_sesh]

2 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

One poster, by virtue of ranting at clouds, revealed their misunderstanding of allegory. 
 

Plato’s Atlantis theme can be summarised as - don’t get bigger than your boot Athenians or else there’ll be a smiting.

Very well stated, sir. I myself like to scream at doors when there are no boots around.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

1 hour ago, kmt_sesh said:

Very well stated, sir. I myself like to scream at doors when there are no boots around.

Leave Jim Morrison alone.

[Piney]

1 minute ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

 Jim Morrison

Now there was a true idiot. 

[+joc]

8 minutes ago, Piney said:

Now there was a true idiot. 

lol   A very creative one though....

[jaylemurph]

2 hours ago, Piney said:

Now there was a true idiot. 

A lot of true idiots are hot, though...

—Jaylemurph 

[jmccr8]

43 minutes ago, jaylemurph said:

A lot of true idiots are hot, though...

—Jaylemurph 

Some in a meta-physical way.

jmccr8

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

2 hours ago, jaylemurph said:

A lot of true idiots are hot, though...

—Jaylemurph 

The rest of us have air conditioning

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

8 hours ago, jaylemurph said:

A lot of true idiots are hot, though...

—Jaylemurph 

Because they are full of hot air ? 

[Harte]

11 hours ago, jaylemurph said:

A lot of true idiots are hot, though...

—Jaylemurph 

That's the best kind of hottie.

Harte

[atalante]

On 11/9/2019 at 1:15 PM, Harte said:

Checking your references, I see you're not above stretching Plato like a rubber band.

A slinky, even

Harte

Yes, slinky.  Critias's Atlantis theme is indeed a "slinky" transformation of the Titanomachy war against Greece - with a human Atlas king substituted for the deity Atlas.  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/slinky i.e. Various details in Plato's Atlantis theme point to this substitution. 

 

a)  Atlas the Titan had led the rebellion in Titanomachy, and a descendant of Atlas the (human) Atlantian king leads the rebellion in Plato's Atlantis theme.

b)  Crit 110d,e said that biographical details about mythical Greek people BEFORE THESEUS had been muddled, while handling down the biographical details orally, from one Greek generation to the next.  The date of Theseus (ca. 1270 BC in Greek mythical chronology) belongs near the time of Egypt's Pharaoh Ramesses II. 

c)  Although the time of the (forgotten among Greeks) Atlantis war belongs BEFORE THESEUS, Plato does not try to date the Atlantis war precisely.  For example in both Tim 24e and 25b, Plato said the war took place "pote" - a Greek word, which the LSJ lexicon of classical Greek language translates as "once upon a time"; or "of some unknown point in time".  Bury's translation of Tim 24e uses this LSJ explanation for pote A.III.1, "once upon a time", as the date of the Atlantis war.

 

Thus, based on both a location for Atlantis near Gadeira/Tartessus/Tartarus - and also based on an Atlas/Euhemerism - many or most of Plato's contemporary Athenian audience would have identified Plato's Atlantis theme as a variant of Titanomachy.  And Plato's contemporaries would understand the date of the Atlantis war to be somewhat before the time of mythical Theseus.        

Crit. 107d,e says discourses about human activities are subjected to far more severe complaints than the way discourses about gods are accepted.  Then immediately afterwards, in Crit 108c, the Critias character predicts to the Hermocrates character that the task of finishing this de-mythologized Atlantis/Titanomachy wargame will be difficult.

The task of the Hermocrates character - in the unfinished part of Plato's dialogue - will be to guide "ancient Athens", as a pragmatic military commander and statesman.  i.e. The task for the Hermocrates character is to show Socrates how 20,000 ancient Athenian troops can realistically deal with the (approximately) 600,000 military troops that the Critias character has given to Atlantis. 

 

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Yuo do know that “once upon a time” oft denotes a fictional tale?

[jaylemurph]

28 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Yuo do know that “once upon a time” oft denotes a fictional tale?

Atlante has a wee bit of difficulty telling the difference between things that are true and things that are fictional...

—Jaylemurph 

[Hanslune]

29 minutes ago, jaylemurph said:

Atlante has a wee bit of difficulty telling the difference between things that are true and things that are fictional...

—Jaylemurph 

Yeah Aesop had existed a century or so before Plato.....

[ThereWeAreThen]

Hang on...is Atlante saying that Atlantis military was 600,000 strong?? I'm pretty sure armies were that big back in that time.  

Pretty sure most battles during that time up until medieval times were pretty small. As in a 100 or so troops a side.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Will 100% admit history isnt exactly my strong point.

[Hanslune]

19 minutes ago, ThereWeAreThen said:

Hang on...is Atlante saying that Atlantis military was 600,000 strong?? I'm pretty sure armies were that big back in that time.  

Pretty sure most battles during that time up until medieval times were pretty small. As in a 100 or so troops a side.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Will 100% admit history isnt exactly my strong point.

Armies of that size moving as one unit would be very difficult to feed or even control. You would need at the least 500-600 tons a food a day that is well beyond the logistical capacity of those types of armies - much more if you have animals, elephants and horses to feed also they need huge amounts of fodder. Now he could say that was the total military and spread all over the world.....I

[ThereWeAreThen]

2 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Armies of that size moving as one unit would be very difficult to feed or even control. You would need at the least 500-600 tons a food a day that is well beyond the logistical capacity of those types of armies - much more if you have animals, elephants and horses to feed also they need huge amounts of fodder. Now he could say that was the total military and spread all over the world.....I

Aye. Thought as much. I did take a gander online to see army sizes back then (ish) and the biggest one I saw was the Persians. 

[kmt_sesh]

45 minutes ago, ThereWeAreThen said:

Hang on...is Atlante saying that Atlantis military was 600,000 strong?? I'm pretty sure armies were that big back in that time.  

Pretty sure most battles during that time up until medieval times were pretty small. As in a 100 or so troops a side.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Will 100% admit history isnt exactly my strong point.

I'm in agreement with Hanslune. It was customary for Greek "history" writers to inflate the enemy's numbers by vast sums. This made the victorious Greeks ("good guys") seem all the more triumphant against the barbarous foreign enemy ("bad guys").

You get a real sense of this in writings of the Peloponnesian War and practically any time the Greeks went up against the Persians.

[ThereWeAreThen]

2 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

I'm in agreement with Hanslune. It was customary for Greek "history" writers to inflate the enemy's numbers by vast sums. This made the victorious Greeks ("good guys" seem all the More triumphant against the barbarous foreign enemy ("bad guys").

You get a real sense of this in writings of the Peloponnesian War And practically any time the Greeks went up against the Persians.

I just realised my spelling error. I meant "weren't" not "were".

[kmt_sesh]

21 minutes ago, ThereWeAreThen said:

I just realised my spelling error. I meant "weren't" not "were".

Admittedly I didn't even catch that myself .No harm done. 

[Piney]

27 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Armies of that size moving as one unit would be very difficult to feed or even control. You would need at the least 500-600 tons a food a day that is well beyond the logistical capacity of those types of armies - much more if you have animals, elephants and horses to feed also they need huge amounts of fodder. Now he could say that was the total military and spread all over the world.....I

You wouldn't be feeding 200,000 horses. You would be eating them.....

.........yum. 

[kmt_sesh]

30 minutes ago, Piney said:

You wouldn't be feeding 200,000 horses. You would be eating them.....

.........yum. 

This makes me wonder what horses taste like. In a way...kind of...maybe just a little bit...Then again, no!

[Piney]

2 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

This makes me wonder what horses taste like. In a way...kind of...maybe just a little bit...Then again, no!

Foal cooked in it's own mother's milk........yum. 

[Hanslune]

2 hours ago, Piney said:

You wouldn't be feeding 200,000 horses. You would be eating them.....

.........yum. 

Yes the 650,000 man army Napoleon threw at Russia in 1812. Well spread out with thousands of wagons and depots to provide food and he ran out of everything - so did the Russians.

Quote

In November of 1812, at the hamlet of Gara, Sergeant François Bourgogne admitted, “I am sure that if I had not found any horseflesh myself, I would have turned cannibal.” Bourgogne, a once dignified and proud member of the Imperial Guard, was brought to this macabre conclusion by the unfortunate events perpetuating Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Bourgogne saw unprecedented death and destruction during the campaign. On this specific occasion, he witnessed many of his comrades burnt alive as they sought shelter in an overcrowded barn. As the building burned, the number of men inside prevented any escape, and it was reported that some soldiers who were not trapped took advantage of the opportunity to dine on their fallen brethren. Bourgogne found that he could not condemn this vile behavior, however, because he believed himself not above such an act, given the circumstance

http://www.indiana.edu/~psource/PDF/Archive Articles/Spring2011/LynchBennettArticle.pdf

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by Hanslune