Andrew Schulz

A pygmy elephant or something like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, I maybe didn't live on Crete at the same time as the Minoans, but there were bones of these many elephants found down inside the caves that definitely the Minoans would have known about.

So there's all these little clues that, like,

It's the Athenians having this really fuzzy memory of the ancient past of the Greek world.

And he's like explaining it in such a way where Athenians will listen to him and what he's saying, right?

But there are kernels of truth in there.

And I think that it's...

at least the city of Heliki and the Minoan civilization falling apart, and maybe it's other things.

But I think that it's Plato drawing on different things that he was aware of growing up and telling this story that is particularly relevant to the Athenians.

The Athenians at this point have now become the new Minoans.

They rule...

They rule the seas.

They rule all the trade routes.

They're just like the Minoans.

And so Plato is telling a new story that they'll listen to, right?

Wow.

Well, and when Santorini erupted, it did push a tsunami down into Crete.

It did mess up some of these cities on the north side of the island.

But most of the destruction is that small burn layer that they think was from people accidentally lighting their own towns on fire.