222 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
the Deluge, it settled on a mountain top, and its crew, the Pelasgian “Sea People,”
disembarked to repopulate the world. Phorcys himself became the first king of
Argos.
In his myth are the leading themes of Atlantis, including its destruction by a
flood and the culture-founding destinies of its survivors.Phoroneus
Plato mentions him at the beginning of the Atlantis account. Phoroneus was
the great-grandson of Atlas by Niobe, also included in Timaeus. In Greek myth,
she perished following the Great Flood, having been turned to stone and per-
petually covered by water. Phoroneus survived the catastrophe, and fathered
Pelasgus, leader of the Pelasgians, the first civilizers of Greece. His other son,
Car, became the eponymous founder of another “sea people,” the Carians. Their
name is intimately connected with Atlantis: Caryatid, the architectural feature of
a human figure supporting a lintel usually representing the sky, derives from
“Caria,” just as Atlas was conceived of as a man upholding the heavens. After the
Great Flood, Car sailed with his followers to the shores of Asia Minor, where they
established the kingdom of Caria.
Phoroneus and his sons represented a large-scale migration of Atlanteans into
the eastern Mediterranean during the late third millennium B.C. geologic violence
that beset the Atlantic island.Pillars of Heracles
In Plato’s Dialogues, we learn that Atlantis was located “beyond the Pillars of
Heracles,” known today as the Strait of Gibraltar. The “pillars” were twin columns
of enormous dimensions flanking a massive cauldron of perpetual flame that not
only burned in homage to the demigod Heracles, but marked the western limits of
the Classical World. This monumental sacred site stood on a high cliff and could
be seen for many miles out at sea by sailors aboard approaching ships, and therefore
served as a kind of lighthouse beacon. Its exact location is unknown, but it must
have been built in either coastal Spain, near Tarifa; or in Morocco, around Cetua
or perhaps even Tangier.
Heracles’ far western shrine may have survived until the collapse of the Clas-
sical World, when it was finally destroyed by either earthquakes or invading
Visigothic barbarians in the fifth century A.D. Who constructed it has never been
clear. Because the Strait of Gibraltar was known to Phoenician sailors as the “Pillars
of Melkharth,” their version of the Roman Hercules, some writers believe it was
set up by the Carthaginians, who were known to have venerated a pillar cult. But
so did their predecessors, the Atlanteans, according to Plato. The structure may
have originally been built by them, but was subsequently renamed by the Greeks
and Romans after the defeat of Carthage, in 146 B.C.