Reader's Guide to Plato's Atlantis
There is a Greek manuscript called the Parisinum Graecum 1807. It was written right around 900 AD. It is the best manuscript we have of Plato's Timaeus and Critias.
There is a print edition of this Greek text available from Oxford Classical Texts. It is entitled Platonis Opera volume IV. I don't recommend you get it though, unless you read Greek, because there is not a single word of English in it (aside from the copyright page). The introduction and footnotes are in Latin. Those footnotes, by the way, show where other old manuscripts vary from the Parisinum Graecum 1807. This is the edition I am using in my translation.
There is also an edition with parallel Greek and English from the Harvard Loeb Classical Library; which I use to collate against the Oxford edition.
Take note that both texts, and many translations, use a notation system based on the Stephanus edition of 1578. Be warned, however, that it is a line number based system, so neither Greek nor English editions line up exactly. It's a system of numbers and letters. The letters used are "A" to "E" while the numbers in Timaeus run from 17 to 92 and in Critias run from 106 to 121. For example, the core description of Atlantis in Timaeus runs from that last part of 24d to a few lines before 25e. So when you look up references in what ever edition you use, you may need dig a bit to locate quotes.
In the Oxford text, Plato's Republic immediately precedes Timaeus. This is because the Timaeus was evidently a sequel to the Republic. The beginning of Timaeus refers to Republic several times; there are numerous references in the first few pages of Timaeus that refer back to Republic. This is because, as Socrates says in the opening discussion, he, Timaeus and the others had spent the day before in a discussion of Republic. It must have been a complex discussion, because Critias says "I know not whether I could recall to mind all that I heard yesterday." Timaeus 26b.
On that day before, Socrates had given the others a homework assignment, as it were. They were to come up with examples that illustrated the ideal society laid out in Republic. During the previous day's discussion Critias had recalled the story of Atlantis.
The section of Timaeus that deals with Atlantis is quite short. It effectively begins where Hermocrates begins speaking in Timaeus 20c. It continues through Critias' summary of the story and concludes with his final comments in Timaeus 26e. Critias says he's ready to tell the story and Socrates asks him to do so. Critias however reminds Socrates that Timaeus is supposed to speak first. [Timaeus 27a,b]
So the rest of the Timaeus dialogue is Timaeus speaking and there is no more mention of Atlantis. Thus, readers interested only in the Atlantis story can skip Timaeus 27c through 91c. However, all of the Critias dialogue is about the Atlantis story; except for the very beginning where Timaeus concludes his dissertation.
This means that the actual Atlantean sections of any book with Timaeus and Critias, are reasonably short. For example, in the Penguin classic edition, Timaeus is about 100 pages long, but the Atlantean section is only 8 pages. Critias is only 17 pages long.
So what does this mean for readers? It means people don't have to read the massive Republic. They can skip the vast majority of Timaeus.
Therefore, since the Atlantean material is so short, can you think of any good reason why people interested in Atlantis don't read it for themselves? I can't think of any. I'd even recommend reading more than one translation. I'd also recommend rereading it occasionally.
Copyright (c)2005 by J.Wells. All rights reserved.