I got curious today
not about Atlantis, though
about something else
but you know how Wikipedia is.
So
the only reason anyone is even talking about Atlantis in the first place
is that Socrates makes some offhanded comments about it in his dialogues
or actually this politician named Critias makes the comments
but maybe Socrates is putting words in Critias’s mouth
or maybe Plato is putting words in Socrates’s mouth
I mean, Plato was not above being a total dick, so it’s possible.
Either way, the story is a fever-dream style mishmash of mythology, history, and dumb lies
and it goes a little something like this:

Back in the day, the Greek gods were dividing up the earth amongst themselves
because it’s not like they already had dominion over everything to begin with
and Poseidon gets handed this sweet little plot of land in the middle of the atlantic ocean
actually, the plot of land is not little
and the ocean isn’t called the Atlantic ocean.
That comes later.
Actually, it comes right now.
I am sorry if it seems like this tale is suffering from premature ejaculation
I am just SUPER excited and I haven’t been sleeping well and I swear this never happens to me
It’s you, dear reader.
You are just too sexy.
Anyway, Poseidon falls deeply in love with a lady named Cleito
and when I say deeply in love
I mean deeply in boners
DEEPLY in boners
still boners run deep, my friends
and rapidly moving boners run deeper still.
YES. GOOD.
Look, I have facts to back this up though:
the facts take the form of the FIVE PAIRS OF TWINS that Poseidon and Cleito have together.
That is a lot of twins.
MOVING ON.

So Poseidon suddenly has all these twins to deal with
but he doesn’t want to try parenting
he still has his life to live
so instead he figures he can probably buy them all off with gifts
gifts of LAND.
Poseidon, what makes you think babies want land?
What is a baby going to do with vast tracts of land?
Poop on them?
The average baby can only poop on maybe an acre, TOPS
and you would STILL HAVE TO FEED IT.
But luckily for poseidon
greek babies pop out of the womb fully formed and ready for a career in agriculture
so he goes ahead and divides up this island he got amongst them
he gives most of the island, including this bigass volcano
to his favorite son, Atlas
and THAT is why the island is called Atlantis
and THAT is why the ocean that it’s in is called the Atlantic ocean.
Man, if the greeks had only known how big that ocean was
like for real
I bet they would have picked a more important god to name it after.
Then Poseidon gives the other half of the island to Atlas’s twin
and then …
and then Critias realizes he planned this wrong because he forgot how fractions work
and he’s just like “Oh, and everyone else got land too.”
Meaning that Poseidon just sold them some choice real estate at the bottom of the marianas trench.

So Atlas and his bro(s) get super excited about this new island
and they go about making all these improvements
digging moats and whatnot
it sounds really sweet
it sounds like what I always used to wish my sand castles would turn out like
but instead they turned into dramatic fury-induced cave-ins that vaguely resembled dogshit.
Gods do not have those kinds of problems, though, so atlantis turns out great.
In fact, Atlantis turns out TOO GREAT.
It turns out so great
that some of its greatness spills over and starts conquering europe and africa.
So the Atlanteans are about to take over egypt and greece
and basically every place else
but oh shit, what’s this?
It looks like some plucky Athenians have mounted a resistance
and HOORAY, THE DAY IS SAVED
pay no attention to the fact that all three of the dudes who could have been telling this story
were born and raised in Athens, Greece.
NO BIAS HERE, FRIENDS.
Whatever
either way, Atlantis gets beat off by Athens
and then gets so embarassed by the whole thing
that it sinks under the ocean
“in a single day and night of misfortune”
which is ancient-dude-code for “everybody got WAYYYY too tipsy.”
and then Poseidon is like “Thanks a lot guys. Now I gotta get a new giant island.
Oh wait, the ocean is way better. Why did I even want an island? That was dumb.”
And then Atlas is unemployed
so he has to get a job holding up the earth forever.

So the moral of the story
is that advanced prehistoric civilizations sink for a REASON.

The end.