Plato, Critias 113c · 113c
Poseidon receives Atlantis
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Critias — λήξεις, ἔνθα δὲ καὶ ἐλάττους, ἱερὰ θυσίας τε αὑτοῖς κατασκευάζοντες, οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὴν νῆσον Ποσειδῶν τὴν Ἀτλαντίδα λαχὼν ἐκγόνους αὑτοῦ κατῴκισεν ἐκ θνητῆς γυναικὸς γεννήσας ἔν τινι τόπῳ τοιῷδε τῆς νήσου. πρὸς θαλάττης μέν, κατὰ δὲ μέσον πάσης πεδίον ἦν, ὃ δὴ πάντων πεδίων κάλλιστον ἀρετῇ τε ἱκανὸν γενέσθαι λέγεται, πρὸς τῷ πεδίῳ δὲ αὖ κατὰ μέσον σταδίους ὡς πεντήκοντα ἀφεστὸς ἦν ὄρος βραχὺ πάντῃ. τούτῳ δʼ ἦν ἔνοικος τῶν ἐκεῖ κατὰ ἀρχὰς ἐκ
Critias: and elsewhere smaller ones, setting up sanctuaries and sacrifices for themselves. So too Poseidon, having received by lot the island of Atlantis, settled his offspring there, whom he had fathered by a mortal woman, in a place of the island like this. On the sea side, at the middle of the whole, there was a plain, said to be the most beautiful of all plains and good enough in quality. Near the plain, again at the middle, about fifty stades away, stood a hill, low on every side. On this there lived an inhabitant, one of the men there who at first were born from
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The setting
Critias goes on with the allotment: Poseidon draws the island of Atlantis and settles there the children he had by a mortal woman. He describes the plain by the sea and the low hill fifty stades inland.
A note on this passage
The island enters the story through the lēxis, the lot. Poseidon is lachōn, "having drawn by lot," a participle of lanchanō, so the island is his share by lot. It is called tēn nēson tēn Atlantida, with the adjective Atlantis standing beside the noun, "the Atlantic island." His children are ekgonoi, offspring, and Critias says at once that their mother was thnētē gynē, a mortal woman, so the mother is named as human before anything else is said of her.
The landscape is given in measured terms. The plain is kalliston, the most beautiful of all plains, and Critias hedges it with legetai, "it is said," then adds aretēi hikanon, "good enough in quality." The hill lies about fifty stadious away, and a stadion is the length of the Greek running track. It is brachy, low or short, and pantēi, on every side. The sentence closes on ek, "from," and the next section supplies what the first dwellers there were born from.
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