The Chinese count ten emperors, partakers of the divine nature, before
the dawn of historical times. The Germans believed in the ten ancestors
of Odin, and the Arabs in the ten mythical kings of the Adites."
(Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 13.)
The story of Plato finds confirmation from other sources.
An extract preserved in Proclus, taken from a work now lost, which is
quoted by Boeckh in his commentary on Plato, mentions islands in the
exterior sea, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and says it was known that
in one of these islands "the inhabitants preserved from their ancestors
a remembrance of Atlantis, all extremely large island, which for a long
time held dominion over all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean."
AElian, in his "Varia Historia" (book iii., chap. xviii.), tells us that
Theopompus (400 B.C.) related the particulars of an interview between
Midas, King of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus reported the
existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic, "larger than Asia,
Europe, and Libya together." He stated that a race of men called Meropes
dwelt there, and had extensive cities.
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