I was three glasses deep in cheap whiskey when someone at the bar started talking about Atlantis.
Some guy with a beard that said, I’ve read too much, and I have no idea what to do with it. He asked if Atlantis was real.
I laughed.
Plato made it up. I’ll tell you why.
But first, if you don’t know who Plato is, he was an ancient Greek philosopher who liked to write dialogues.
He’s famous for The Republic, where he talks about justice, the perfect city, and why poets suck.
He also wrote Timaeus and Critias.
That’s where Atlantis shows up. It’s a big, advanced island civilization that gets wiped off the map in a single day and night. Just—poof—gone.
Why did he make it up? Seven damn good reasons.
1. He Needed a Big, Fat Moral Lesson
Plato didn’t just tell stories.
He built traps. He’d set up a civilization, make it look grand, polished, untouchable—then he’d watch it collapse under the weight of its own arrogance.
Atlantis was that kind of trap. A “look what happens when you start believing your own myth” kind of story.
The Atlanteans had everything. Wealth, power, land that stretched beyond what any sane man needed.
They were the kings of their world, and like all kings, they thought the throne belonged to them forever.
But power makes people forgetful. It makes them blind. They stop seeing the edge of the cliff, even when they’re running straight toward it.
So Plato gives them their wake-up call. The gods don’t send a messenger, don’t give a warning, don’t tap politely on the shoulder.
No, they send an ocean. One day, Atlantis is there, shining like a golden apple in the sun. The next, it’s gone—swallowed, erased, like it never mattered at all.
And that was the point. “The higher a man rises, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly.”
That’s Nietzsche talking, but it fits. The Atlanteans soared too high, and from the gods’ point of view, they were nothing more than a speck—one easy push away from the abyss.
Plato didn’t want you to think Atlantis was special. He wanted you to realize it was just another fool who climbed too high, only to learn that the sky doesn’t belong to men.
2. He Loved a Good Allegory
Plato wasn’t a historian. He wasn’t interested in dates, names, or what color the Atlanteans painted their temples.
He was after something bigger—something that outlived stone and memory.
He wanted a lesson, the kind that sneaks into your head and stays there long after the storyteller is gone.
Atlantis was that lesson. A trick wrapped in a legend, built to outlive the man who wrote it.
Plato did this all the time. The Allegory of the Cave?
Not a real cave. It was about ignorance, about men who live in shadows and mistake them for truth.
The Myth of Er? Not an actual soldier coming back from the dead. It was about justice, about what happens to a soul when the world is done with it.
Atlantis was no different. It wasn’t about a sunken city.
It was about a civilization that had everything—intelligence, wealth, power—and lost it all because they thought they were untouchable. It was a warning dressed up as a mystery.
“Symbols rule the world, not words nor laws.”
Confucius said that.
Plato understood it. He knew that facts fade, that real cities crumble and turn to dust, but myths?
Myths grow stronger with time. People don’t remember lost kingdoms. They remember the stories about them. And sometimes, that’s enough to make a lie last forever.
3. He Was Selling Utopia
In The Republic, Plato describes his perfect city, Kallipolis. It’s ruled by philosophers, not greedy bastards.
Atlantis was the opposite—a civilization that had it all but still messed up.
He wanted his readers to compare the two and think, Yeah, I guess those nerdy philosopher-kings aren’t so bad after all.
4. He Needed to Impress His Audience
Greek philosophers didn’t just write dry theory. They put on a show.
They wanted people to listen, and nothing gets people talking like a lost city swallowed by the sea.
Atlantis was the hook. The clickbait. The sexy scandal of the ancient world.
5. He Stole (and Twisted) Old Myths
There were plenty of real disasters in the ancient world—volcanic eruptions, floods, sinking islands.
Plato might have taken those stories and cranked them up to eleven. He wasn’t a historian; he was a remix artist. He took what was already floating around and made it dramatic.
6. He Never Finished the Story (Because It Didn’t Matter)
Critias is unfinished. Atlantis just—stops. No grand ending, no neat conclusion. You know why? Because Plato didn’t give a damn about Atlantis itself. The story served its purpose. He moved on.
7. He Knew People Would Eat It Up
Atlantis wasn’t real, but Plato knew people love a mystery. He threw it out there, and centuries later, people are still looking for it.
The joke’s on them. Plato got exactly what he wanted—immortality.
Table Summary: Why Plato Invented Atlantis
| Reason | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Moral Lesson | Atlantis was a warning about arrogance |
| Allegory | He loved using fiction to make a point |
| Utopia Contrast | Atlantis was the bad example to Kallipolis |
| Audience Appeal | People love a disaster story |
| Borrowed Myths | He stole and dramatized old disaster tales |
| Unfinished Ending | Because the details didn’t matter |
| Long-Term Impact | He knew people would obsess over it |
Conclusion
So, did Plato believe in Atlantis? Not a chance. It was a con, a parable, a don’t be like these guys bedtime story for ancient Greeks.
He wrote it, had a drink, and moved on.
And yet, here we are, still talking about it.
That guy at the bar? He didn’t believe me. He said, “Nah, man, they found ruins in the ocean.”
I ordered another drink and let him have his fantasy.
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