In an attempt at universal conquest,
this island State made war upon Greece and Egypt, but was defeated
by the Athenians, and overwhelmed by the sea as a punishment for its
sins, leaving only a range of mud-banks, dangerous to navigation,
to mark the place where it had been. In the Timaeus and Critias, Plato
describes with considerable detail the features of the island State,
and the details are such that he might almost have been describing
what the Egyptian priest who originally told the story was no doubt
endeavouring to describe--the actual port and Palace of Knossos,
with the life that went on there. 'The great harbour, for example,
with its shipping and its merchants coming from all parts, the
elaborate bathrooms, the stadium, and the solemn sacrifice of a bull,
are all thoroughly, though not exclusively, Minoan; but when we read
how the bull is hunted "in the temple of Poseidon without weapons
but with staves and nooses," we have an unmistakable description of
the bull-ring at Knossos, the very thing which struck foreigners
most, and which gave rise to the legend of the Minotaur.'[*]
[Footnote *: 'The Lost Continent,' _Times_, February 19, 1909. The
anonymous writer was the first to identify Crete with the 'Lost
Atlantis.']
The boundaries which Plato assigns to the Empire of the lost State
are practically identical with those over which Minoan influence
is now known to have spread, while the description of the island
itself is such as to make it almost certain that Crete was the
original from which it was drawn.
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