Free Atlantis Pyramids Floods by Dennis Brooks

was situated had a
diameter of five stadia.
    All this including the zones and the
bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they
surrounded by a stone wall on every side, placing towers and gates
on the bridges where the sea passed in.
    The stone which was used in the work
they quarried from underneath the centre island, and from
underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One
kind was white, another black, and a third red, and as they
quarried, they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having
roofs formed out of the native rock.
    Some of their buildings were simple,
but in others, they put together different stones, varying the
color to please the eye, and to be a natural source of
delight.
    The entire circuit of the wall, which
went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of
brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and
the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red
light of orichalcum.
    The palaces in the interior of the
citadel were constructed on this wise: In the centre was a holy
temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained
inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was
the spot where the family of the ten princes first saw the light,
and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in
their season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to each
of the ten.
    Here was Poseidon’s own temple, which
was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a
proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the
outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they
covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior
of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere
with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the
walls and pillars and floor, they coated with
orichalcum.
    In the temple, they placed statues of
gold: There was the god himself standing in a chariot—the
charioteer of six winged horses—and of such a size that he touched
the roof of the building with his head. Around him there were a
hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the
number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the
interior of the temple other images, which had been dedicated by
private persons.
    And around the temple on
the outside were placed statues of gold of all the descendants of
the ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other
great offerings of kings and of private
persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign
cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in
size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and the
palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom
and the glory of the temple.
    In the next place, they had fountains,
one of cold and another of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing;
and they were wonderfully adapted for use by reason of the
pleasantness and excellence of their waters.
    They constructed buildings about them,
and planted suitable trees. Also, they made cisterns, some open to
the heavens and others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm
baths. There were the kings’ baths, and the baths of private
persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for
women, and for horses and cattle. To each of them they gave as much
adornment as was suitable.
    Of the water which ran off, they
carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all
manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the
excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts
along the bridges to the outer circles. There were many temples
built and dedicated to many gods. Also, gardens and places of
exercise, some for men, and others for horses, on both of the two
islands formed by the zones. In the centre of the larger of the two
there was set apart a racecourse of a stadium in width, and in
length