ABSTRACT
The story of Atlantis, the central piece of Plato's triptych, is yet another symbol of the contest of reason with the ocean of lawless desires. The two forces met in unreconciled opposition, and both were overwhelmed together by flood and earthquake. The theme of civilised freedom triumphant over barbarism and tyranny was repeated in other sculptures of the Parthenon: the battles of Greeks and Amazons, of Lapiths and Centaurs, and, on the metopes of the eastern front, the battle of Gods and Giants. Here Athena stood in the centre beside her father Zeus, who blasted his enemies with the thunderbolt in a victory of superior force. The philosophic poet and the poet philosopher are both consciously concerned with the enthronement of wisdom and justice in human society. And the way to peace, for Plato as for Aeschylus, lies through reconcilement of the rational and the irrational, of Zeus and Fate, of Reason and Necessity, not by force but by persuasion.
