n.
Legendary sunken island in the Atlantic Ocean west of Gibraltar.
The main sources for the legend are two of Plato 's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias . According to Plato, Atlantis had a rich civilization, and its princes made many conquests in the Mediterranean before earthquakes destroyed the island and it was swallowed up by the sea. Plato also supplied a history of its ideal commonwealth, and Atlantis is sometimes imagined as a utopia. The legend may have originated with the eruption 0441; 1500 BC of a volcano on Thíra , which was so powerful that it gave rise to earthquakes and tidal waves.