P: Pacata-Mu to Pur-Un-Runa 221
the reigns of this solar vehicle. Before long, however, he lost control of the
powerful team of fiery horses, and they set much of the world ablaze. Hearing
the commotion, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt, and Phaethon fell to Earth, his long
hair in flames. The chariot crashed into the sea, causing a terrific flood that
extinguished the conflagration.
As early as 1821, the German genius Wolfgang von Goethe expressed his opinion
that Phaethon symbolized a natural catastrophe. Long before and since, many
scholars have concluded that the myth describes a cometary collision with the
Earth. In Timaeus, Plato quotes the Egyptian high priest, who explains that the
myth was actually a metaphor for a real, natural event:
There have been and will be many different calamities to destroy
mankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, lesser ones by
countless other means. There is a story which even you have pre-
served, that once upon a time, Phaethon, the son of Helios, having
yoked the steeds of his father’s chariot, burnt up all that was upon
the Earth, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his
father, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has
the form of a myth, but really signifies a deviation in their courses
of the bodies moving around the Earth and the heavens, and a
great conflagration recurring at long intervals of time.
This inclusion of the Phaethon story early in the narrative can only mean Plato
intended to posit a celestial cause in his unfinished description of the Atlantis
catastrophe. That Phaethon was in fact a mythic representation of an actual cosmic
event appears certain. In numerous ancient accounts, comets are almost invariably
referred to as “hairy,” or “long-haired,” recalling the tragic hero’s flaming tresses,
as he fell to Earth. Phaethon means “Shining One,” or “Blazing Star,” no less
descriptive of an extraordinary comet. It has a similar meaning in Egyptian: Pha-aton,
or “House of (or inheritable property belonging to) Aton,” the sun-disk. This
shared significance implies that both the Greeks and Egyptians, whose languages
were otherwise unrelated to each other, received the name independently from
an outside source—namely, Atlantean survivors who sought refuge in both lands.
Kritias ends with Zeus, master of all celestial fires, contemplating the destruction
of Atlantis.
Philo Judaeus
Important first-century Alexandrine theologian, who taught that Plato based
his allegorical story of Atlantis on historical reality.
Phorcys
“He Who Was Borne Away” by the Great Flood in Greek myth, son of Inachus
(“Rapid Current”) and Melia (“Ash”), from which was made Phorcys’ ark. After