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Plutarch is the classical writer I return to when I want to know how the Atlantis story travelled after Plato. He was a Greek writer of the first and second centuries AD and a priest at Delphi, and his name turns up across my research on Solon, the oracle and old customs. These are the pages where I wrote about him.
Plutarch on Solon and Atlantis
On Timaeus & Critias – Plato’s Island of Atlantis I keep two passages from Plutarch’s Life of Solon. In the first, Plutarch writes that Solon studied with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais, very learned priests, from whom, as Plato says, he heard the story of the lost Atlantis and tried to bring it to the Greeks in poetic form. In the second, he regrets that Plato began the work late and died before finishing it:
For as the Olympieion in the city of Athens, so the tale of the lost Atlantis in the wisdom of Plato is the only one among many beautiful works to remain unfinished.
Plutarch, Life of Solon
On Ancient sources on Atlantis I point out that it is Plutarch, not Plato, who gives the name Sonchis to the Egyptian priest Solon spoke with, that he seems to have believed the story to be true, and that in The Face of the Moon he says people once sailed to the continent on the other side of the Atlantic. Plutarch is one of my three favourite witnesses there, with Strabo and Aelianus. Where Was Atlantis lists him among the classical authors who referred to Atlantis, and on Atlantis, Fallen Angels, and Archaic DNA Robert Sepehr cites Plutarch for Plato’s ambitious plans for the story that he could not finish before his death.
Plutarch at Delphi
On Oracle of Delphi known for its prophetic insights and deep spiritual authority I note that Plutarch served as one of the two priests at Delphi. According to him, the Pythia could come from any background, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, and was chosen more for aptitude than for status. He also describes how exhausted she could be after a session.
Plutarch on old customs
On Couvade Plutarch reports, after Paeon of Amathus, a custom in Cyprus in which a young man imitated the cries and gestures of a woman in labour to honour Ariadne, who died while pregnant. Ancient Greek Sources sums him up in my table as the writer who recounted Solon’s Egyptian journey, named the priest Sonchis, implied belief in Atlantis and mentioned a continent across the ocean.
Related pages
- Timaeus & Critias – Plato’s Island of Atlantis
- Ancient sources on Atlantis
- Ancient Greek Sources
- Where Was Atlantis
- Oracle of Delphi known for its prophetic insights and deep spiritual authority
- Couvade
- Atlantis, Fallen Angels, and Archaic DNA
For every page I tagged with Plutarch, see the Plutarch tag archive.
