The Atlantians and the Amazons of Libya
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The Atlantians and the Amazons, according to Diodorus Siculus (Historical Library, book three, chapters 53, 54, 56)The ancient Greek historical Diodorus of Sicily provides us with many interesting facts by writing very revealingly in his book above about the life and culture of two peoples who lived in Libya (Africa): 1) about the Amazons, a female-dominated tribe that lived on the island Hespera in the Lake Tritonis near the Atlas mountain, 2) about the Atlantians, the most civilized people of that region who lived in an area on the African coast of the Ocean (at that time this area was called Libya), with the coastal city of Cerne as their capital, 3) for the conquest of the Atlantians by the Amazons 4) about another race dominated by women, called the Mermaids, who lived next to the Atlanteans and constantly attacked them Since at the time of Diodorus most writers believed that the only Amazons who existed in the prehistoric ages were the Amazons who inhabited the Black Sea, Diodorus additionally specifies in the same book (III, chapter 52) that the Libyan Amazons performed deeds of great worth and they lived much earlier (older) than the Pontic Amazons (who lived in the Thermodontus River). He also mentions some chronological orientation, writing that "the generation of the Libyan Amazons disappeared many generations before the Trojan war, while the women of the Thermodontus River flourished just before the Trojans. And it is not unreasonable that the later and better-known ones inherited the glory of the older ones because of the intervening years". Pay close attention below, the descriptions of the Diodorus are shocking, according to them the history of the Atlantians of Libya is closely intertwined with the history of the African Amazons.
The invasion of the Amazons in the land of the Atlantians of Libya
The Atlantes of Africa and the "sea of Atlantis" according to HerodotusDiodorus Siculus was not the only historian who wrote about an Atlantean tribe that once lived on the coast of Northwest Africa (then called Libya). A few centuries before Diodorus, the ancient historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), who was rightly established as the "father of history", gives us approximately the same information, describing the geography of Africa and the customs and habits of the peoples who lived there earlier in this, in his work "Historiai". Herodotus mentions that there used to be a people who lived in different areas of the Atlas mountain. He even describes the mountain with the shape of a perfect circle (conical), with a small area and with very high peaks that are impossible to see because they were covered with clouds in winter and summer. From the name of this mountain these people were called "Atlantes".
Related to the above is also the name given by Herodotus for the sea to the west of North Africa, where the Atlantes were located and outside the columns of Herakles, in his first book. He calls it "the sea of Atlantis" and not the Atlantic Ocean, describing the seas around the Mediterranean:
Historical analysis - CommentsIt may be curious but not coincidental that first Herodotus mentions a Libyan people named "Atlantes" and after 400 years Diodorus Siculus mentions a people named "Atlantians" (who coexisted with the Amazons and the Mermaids). Were they two different peoples living in different periods of time or were they the same people? From the fact that they lived roughly in the same areas of Northwest Africa and their names are formed from the same root "atl" or "atlan" it is inferred that both peoples were at least related (in origin) tribes who may have lived at different times. And furthermore, if they lived in the same time period then it surely follows that they were the same people (the slight difference in the ending of the name does not play any role here). So they were a tribe or two related tribes with names that refer to the land of Atlantis. If we follow, during or before its final destruction, the historical route of the inhabitants of Atlantis starting from the "Atlantis island of the Ocean", then it is reasonable to expect the migration of the surviving Atlanteans precisely to the regions of Libya described by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. These coastal areas around the Atlas Mountains became their new homeland and their springboard for new migrations to the east. Even their distant descendants, the Atlantians, lived there until "many generations before the Trojan war" according to Diodorus. The "Atlantes" of Herodotus and the "Atlantians" of Diodorus Siculus were doubtless the descendants of the survivors of the deluge, and finding themselves in North Africa, evidently retained memories of their gods, traditions, and culture, "the source of which was the ocean' (i.e. the Atlantic). It is also more than interesting and not coincidental that Herodotus (450 BC) had already called the ocean to their west by the name "Sea of Atlantis" almost a hundred years before Plato. |