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Incomplete account.
Plato’s account of the demise of Atlantis is incomplete and finishes in mid sentence. We are told that Zeus “the god of gods” summons all the gods to his great abode in the
sky. However Plato’s account terminates abruptly saying, “... and when they (the gods) had assembled Zeus addressed them as follows...”
Here the story is cut short. Fortunately however there is a virtually identical reference in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although the topic of Atlantis is not mentioned by name it is obvious that both
Plato and Ovid are describing the same event. A time when “Men lived on what they could plunder...and all proper affection lay vanquished.”
Deadly swiftness.
In the Metamorphoses Ovid describes a the same council of the gods presided over by Zeus himself. The Earth has become thoroughly decadent and Zeus is resolved to
destroy it. Seeking the approbation of the gods he outlines his plans whose implementation he carries out with deadly swiftness.
Below is an account of Ovid’s narrative by Thomas Bulfinch published in his book The Golden Age of Myth and Legend. Zeus is here referred to by his Roman name of
Jupiter.
Frightful condition.
Jupiter seeing the state of things burned with anger. He summoned the gods to council. They obeyed the call and took the road to the palace of heaven...Jupiter addressed the
assembly. He set forth the frightful condition of things on Earth , and closed by announcing his intention to destroy the whole of its inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would be
more worthy of life, and much better worshippers of the gods.
Change of plan.
So saying Jupiter took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at the world and destroy it by burning: but recollecting the danger that such a conflagration might set
heaven itself on fire, he changed his plan, and resolved to drown it.
Sea without shore.
The north wind which scatters the clouds was chained up; the south was sent out, and soon covered all the face of heaven with a cloak of pitchy darkness. The clouds driven
together resound with a crash; torrents of rain fall; the crops are laid low; the years labour of the husbandman perishes in an hour. Jupiter, not satisfied with his own waters, calls on his brother
Neptune to aid him with his. He lets loose the rivers, and pours them over the land. At the same time he heaves the land with an earthquake and brings in the reflux of the ocean over the shores. Flocks,
herds men and houses are swept away, and temples with their sacred enclosures profaned. If any edifice remained standing it was overwhelmed and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves.
Now all was sea. Sea without shore.”
Click here for Plato’s account of the demise of Atlantis
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